North Devon farm worker fractured skull in roof fall

Date:

21 January 2011

Release No:

WW2/1/11

A farm worker suffered two fractures to his skull after falling through a barn roof while carrying out repair work.

The incident happened when employee Andrew Jeffrey, was working for LD Heywood Ltd at Gorvin Farm, Woolsery, in September 2009.

He had been instructed by Mr Heywood to cut ventilation holes in the roof of a cattle barn and was working alone when he fell approximately four metres through a roofing sheet onto the concrete floor, hitting his head.

LD Heywood Ltd, of East Milford Farm, Hartland, pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was fined £5,000 by North Devon Magistrates at a hearing on 5 January 2011.

Leslie Heywood, a Director of L D Heywood Ltd, of the same address, pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was also fined £5,000 in the case brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Both LD Heywood Ltd and Leslie Heywood were ordered to pay £2,500 each in costs.

HSE inspector, Tony Makin, said:

"This is a type of incident we see all too often where no precautions have been taken when working on a fragile roof.

"Mr Jeffrey was left to do the job on his own with no safety precautions provided to prevent him falling from or through the fragile roof or to mitigate the consequences should a fall occur. Simple preventative measures would have saved him from these injuries."

Last year more than 4,000 workers suffered major injuries as the result of falls from height and 15 lost their lives. Information on preventing injuries is available at www.hse.gov.uk/falls

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce 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.
2. Section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 states that it is the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety at work of employees. In working on roofs this duty includes providing a safe system for carrying out the work.
3. Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 states that where an offence by a company is proved and it is also proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to have been attributable to any neglect on the part of a director of the company then that director is also guilty of the offence.

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Issued on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive by COI News and PR (South West)