Merseyside roofer caught on camera risking lives

Date:

13 December 2012

A Merseyside roofer has been fined after he allowed lives to be put at risk on the roof of a semi-detached house in Maghull.

Phillip McGinn (right) and another worker on the roof of a semi-detached house in Maghull

Phillip McGinn, 38, and two other workers were photographed retiling the roof of a property on Old Race Course Road on 21 August this year without safety measures in place to prevent them falling to the ground below.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) sent an inspector to visit the site after receiving a complaint about the work from a member of the public. The inspector immediately issued a Prohibition Notice ordering the men to come down from the roof until it had been made safe.

South Sefton Magistrates' Court in Bootle was told today (13 December 2012) that scaffolding had been erected at the front of the house, but there was nothing at the side or back of the roof to stop workers falling off.

Phillip McGinn, who trades at Stormguard Roofing, pleaded guilty to a breach of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 after he failed to take measures to prevent workers being injured in a fall.

Mr McGinn, of Wynnstay Avenue in Maghull, was fined £3,000 and ordered to pay £1,668 in prosecution costs.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE Inspector Jackie Western said:

"There were several ways this work could have been carried out safely, including fitting hand rails and toe boards around the edge of the roof to prevent people falling.

"Mr McGinn put his own life and the lives of two other men at risk by allowing the work to go ahead without suitable safety measures in place. The scaffolding at the front of the building did nothing to prevent them falling off the side or back of the roof.

"I would like to thank the person who alerted us about the work as, if they hadn't, someone could have been seriously injured or even killed."

The latest figures show that 38 people died as a result of a fall in a workplace in Great Britain in 2010/11, and more than 4,000 suffered a major injury. Information on preventing falls is available at www.hse.gov.uk/falls.

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 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states: "Where work is carried out at height, every employer shall take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent, so far as is reasonably practicable, any person falling a distance liable to cause personal injury."

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