Scaffold collapse injuries lead to fine

Date:

11 April 2012

Release No:

HSE/EM/006

A former scaffolding company director has been fined after two employees were injured in a scaffold collapse.

A 26-year-old man working for Robert Leslie Butler fractured his left ankle and right heel as he jumped six metres from a scaffold tower at student accommodation on Radford Boulevard, Nottingham, on 24 January 2011, as it fell to the ground.

A second employee, 46, was working at a height of around 10 metres. He managed to hang on to the scaffold as it fell. It crashed into the building opposite and he was able to slide down to the ground, suffering minor injuries.

The men, both of whom have asked not to be named, were in the process of dismantling the scaffold.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found the scaffold tower had not been erected to industry standards and had not been fitted with adequate ties to secure it to the building.

Robert Leslie Butler, 46, of Owthorpe Close, Top Valley, Nottingham pleaded guilty breaching Regulations 4(1)(c) and 8(b)(ii) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 by virtue of Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. Today Nottingham magistrates fined him a total of £3,000 and ordered him to pay costs of £2,000.

After the hearing HSE inspector Kevin Wilson said:

"The two men were extremely luck to survive this incident. There was no safe sequence of work in place to dismantle the tower. The fact the scaffold only had ties at the top meant that as soon as they were removed a collapse was inevitable.

"Work at height should be properly planned and a safe system of work developed. Mr Butler failed his employees in both respects."

At the time of the incident Mr Butler was director of RB & Son Scaffolding Limited. The company has since been dissolved.

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 37 of the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: "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."
3. Regulation 4(1)(c) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states: "Every employer shall ensure that work at height is carried out in a manner which is so far as is reasonably practicable safe."
4. Regulation 8(b)(ii) of the same regulations states: "Every employer shall ensure that, in the case of a working platform where scaffolding is provided Part 2 of Schedule 3 is also complied with." The details of Part 2 of Schedule 3 can be found at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2005/735/schedule/3/part/2/made
5. Visit www.hse.gov.uk/falls for more guidance on working at height.

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