The cases also saw 64 months imprisonment, 600 hours community service and almost £7 million in fines.
A Swansea company who failed to properly plan, effectively supervise and undertake work at heights safely at Port Talbot Steel Works have been found guilty of breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 after a worker fell 40ft. The scaffolder suffered serious injuries including a broken right collar bone and multiple fractures to ribs, pelvis, femur and fibula along with ligament, muscle & tissue damage. The HSE inspector managing the case told the court that the accident could have easily been avoided with proper procedures and supervision in place.
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Another incident involved a builder who failed to correctly secure a piece of timber he was hoisting up outside of a scaffold. He was found guilty of Regulation 8 (1) of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998. The court heard that a mother was pushing her three-year-old daughter in a buggy by the scaffold, which had no exclusion zone in place, when the piece of timber fell 10 meters and struck the child on the head, causing her life-changing injuries which she may never recover from. As well as failing to place an exclusion zone below the load, the builder, Grzegorz Glowacki, had used an inappropriate knot for the load. The HSE commented that they will not tolerate cases of members of the public being put in risk needlessly and that the risk should have been identified and controlled by Mr Glowacki, preventing any such incident.
For more information on June court cases on non-compliance or to find out how your workforce and business can be protected, visit the CRAMS website.
You can also book a demo or give CRAMS a call on 0300 303 3613.
