Company fined after worker falls from balcony

Date:

5 December 2011

A Pembroke Dock construction company and its director have been prosecuted after a labourer suffered serious injuries on a construction site.

Karl Kraus, 31, from Pembroke Dock was employed by Preseli Construction & Maintenance Ltd, and was working on the build of a large domestic property at Incline Way, Saundersfoot.

The Preseli Construction & Maintenance Ltd site where the incident occurred

Haverfordwest Magistrates' Court heard that on 25 March 2010, Mr Kraus was instructed to remove a concrete block that had been placed across a doorway. As he proceeded to throw the block, he fell backwards on to the balcony and then seven metres to the ground below.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that the three-storey house was being built without scaffold or any form of fall prevention.

Preseli Construction & Maintenance Ltd and its director, Mr Christopher Newell, had failed to ensure that work at height was properly planned and supervised. They also failed to ensure that it was carried out in a safe manner.

Mr Kraus spent six days in Morriston Hospital in Swansea where he underwent surgery to pin the bone in his left heel and was in a plaster cast for approximately ten months. Still in constant pain and unable to walk on uneven ground without risking a fall, he is due to undergo further surgery to prevent any further damage to his foot, but his career in the construction industry is over.

Preseli Construction & Maintenance Ltd of Waterloo Industrial Estate, Eastern Avenue, Pembroke Dock pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 4(1) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005. It was fined £12,000 and ordered to pay costs of £2,376.25.

Mr Christopher Newell of The Glebe, Narberth Road, Tenby also pleaded guilty to breaching Section 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. He was fined £4,000, with costs of £2,376.25. Mr Newell is also disqualified from acting as a company director, managing or in any way controlling a company for at least two years.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Anne-Marie Orrells said:

The Preseli Construction & Maintenance Ltd site where the incident occurred

"Falls from height are the single biggest cause of fatalities in the construction industry. If work is carried out at height then all appropriate measures should be put in place to reduce the risk of falling.

"Mr Kraus is still a young man who's life has been turned upside down after receiving significant long-term injuries in this incident. He is no longer able to do any of the simplest things that many people take for granted, like playing with his children or going for a walk in the countryside with his partner.

"This is a typical example of high risk work being conducted in an unsafe manner. Had scaffolding been put in place, this incident could so easily have been prevented."

All employers have a duty to assess risks in the workplace and put in place sensible health and safety measures to manage them. More information on practical solutions to ensure the health and safety of workers in the construction industry can be found on HSE's website at www.hse.gov.uk/construction.

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 4(1) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states that every employer shall ensure that work at height is properly planned; appropriately supervised; and carried out in a manner which is so far as is reasonably practicable safe.
3. Section 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 states that: Where an offence under any of the relevant statutory provisions committed by a body corporate is proved to have been committed with the consent or connivance of, or to have been attributable to any neglect on the part of, any director, manager, secretary or other similar officer of the body corporate or a person who was purporting to act in any such capacity, he as well as the body corporate shall be guilty of that offence and shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.

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