Companies sentenced after worker's fatal fall

Date:

23 November 2012

A major construction company and a concrete structures firm have been sentenced today (23 November) after a worker died following a fall from height at a Swansea building site.

Carillion Construction Ltd, along with Febrey Ltd, were jointly prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following the incident at the Meridian Quay apartment development in Swansea on 22 January 2008.

Self-employed father of two, Russell Samuel from Porth was contracted by Febrey Ltd to work as a scaffolder at the Swansea site.

Swansea Crown Court heard he was dismantling a scaffold ladder access platform ready for the installation of the roof and staircase on the fourth floor, when he fell approximately 19 metres to the ground below, narrowly missing carpenter Raymond Haines, who was working directly below.

Mr Samuel, 40, suffered multiple injuries during his fall, including a fractured skull. He was taken to Morriston Hospital but died two days later on 24 January 2008.

The HSE investigation found the defendants, Febrey Ltd, had inadequate and ineffective health and safety management arrangements in place and there was little or no communication, information and instruction provided to its workforce. The management team on site was not adequately trained in health and safety, despite repeated warnings by its health and safety consultants, and this led to persistent and systematic failures to control work at height risks at site.

The failing of its director was also found to have had a direct bearing on the sequence of events that led to the death of Mr Samuel.

Carillion Construction Ltd failed to ensure the safety of its employees and those under its control. The company, as principal contractor, was made aware of and had detected many failings in the safety management of Febrey Ltd. However, it failed to gain improvement from Febrey on many occasions.

Carillion Construction Ltd of Birch Street, Wolverhampton pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) and Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was fined a total of £130,000 and ordered to pay £52,500 in costs.

Febrey Ltd, of Burcott Road, Bristol admitted breaching Section 2(1) and Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company has since gone into liquidation was fined a total of £85, although the judge said he would have fined them £250,000 before it became insolvent.

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

"There were recurrent indicators that should have alerted Carillion to Febrey's persistent and systematic failures throughout the whole project. Yet Carillion failed to adequately address Febrey's significant failings. As the principal contractor on site, Carillion had a clear duty to plan, manage and monitor the construction work.

"Falls from height are still the biggest killer in the construction industry and this is the tragic reality of what can happen when adequate arrangements are not in place to manage health and safety.

"Mr Samuel's children and family will have to live with the consequences the defendants' failings for the rest of their lives."

Febrey director, Michael Febrey, of Rockleaze Road, Bristol pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and will be fined at a later date.

Further information about working safely at height can be found on the HSE website 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. Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 states that "It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees."
3. Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, states that "It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety."
4. 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 the Regional News Network