Cambridgeshire school fined over loft fall

Date:

26 July 2011

Release No:

HSE-e-31-11

An independent school near Huntingdon has been prosecuted after a teenager was injured when she fell from a loft space to the swimming pool changing rooms below.

Pool attendant Stacey Paine, 19, and the swimming pool manager were retrieving paperwork stored in a loft above the Kimbolton School changing rooms.

To reach the documents she walked along a beam of the unboarded loft but lost her footing. She fell two and a half metres on to the tiled floor below narrowly missing a benched area.

Stacey, from St Neots suffered a fractured wrist in the fall on 20 April 2010.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuting told Huntingdon Magistrates' Court today that Kimbolton School had not carried out a risk assessment for entering the loft and failed to ensure that its staff did not work on or near a fragile surface.

After the hearing, HSE Inspector Stephen Faulkner said:

"The outcome of this incident could have been very different. Falling from height, particularly onto such a hard surface often results in severe injuries or even death. It is an employer's duty to ensure the safety of all staff and anyone working at height needs to be protected.

"In this case, the documents could have been stored somewhere easier to reach and if a simple risk assessment had been carried out, this would have been identified. I urge any organisation to consider where they store items including paperwork and how safe it is for an employee to access."

Kimbolton School pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 9(1) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 and was fined £6,000 and ordered to pay costs of £2,276.40.

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk
2. Regulation 9(1) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states an employer must "ensure that no one working under your control goes onto or near a fragile surface unless that is the only reasonably practicable way for the worker to carry out the work safely, having regard to the demands of the task, equipment, or working environment."

Press enquiries

Regional reporters should call the appropriate Regional News Network press office.

Issued on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive by COI News & PR East