Engineering Firm Prosecuted for Breaching Health and Safety Regulations
An engineering firm has been prosecuted after a handyman from Burnley narrowly escaped serious injuries following a fall through a fragile roof. The 47 year old, who has not been named, was fixing a leak at Lupton and Place Ltd when he stumbled backwards and plummeted four metres.
A machine cover broke the man’s fall and he subsequently walked away unscathed. A Health and Safety Investigation found that the firm had allowed the contractor to work without ensuring any safety measures were implemented to prevent such an incident.
HSE Inspector Matt Lea revealed that Lupton and Place had employed the worker for over three decades but they had never considered appropriate health and safety regulations.
“A company the size of Lupton and Place should have requested method statements and risk assessments from him to make sure the work could be done safely. It would have been much more sensible to use a cherry picker to fix the leak, instead of allowing someone to walk along the roof and work on the fragile surface.”
Lupton and Place Ltd were fined £6,000 and told to pay prosecution costs amounting to £6,250 after pleading guilty to breaching the 1974 Health and Safety at Work etc Act.
“The handyman was very lucky to come away from the incident with just bruising. He could easily have suffered a major injury or even been killed in a fall of that distance,” Mr Lea concluded.
