Dallas McMillan's Blog

An Aberdeenshire roofing boss has been fined after one of his workers was seriously injured when he fell five metres from the edge of a flat roof.

Mr McNeilly was throwing lead cut-offs onto the ground while standing on the flat roof when he either slipped or inadvertently stepped off the edge. He lost his balance and fell five metres to the ground, landing on his right side near a skip.

His right hip ball joint was severed from his thigh bone and a metal plate and four pins had to be inserted. He was in hospital for four days and was off work for 16 weeks. He has largely made a full recovery but still experiences pain in his hip.

Following the incident, an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that no scaffold platform with guard-rails and toe-boards or any other form of fall prevention equipment were in place to prevent falls either from the edges of the flat roof or at the edge of the lower porch roof.

The investigation also revealed that Mr Mackie had not been to the site that morning or in the three or four days prior to the incident and had not given any specific instructions about how to do the work.

At Aberdeen Sheriff Court the roofing boss was fined £15,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Regulation 4 of The Work at Height Regulations 2005.

In 2010/11, 38 people (both employees and self-employed) in Britain died and there were 3,177 serious injuries after work-related falls from height.

The director of a building firm has been prosecuted after a self-employed contractor fell to his death through a fragile roof at an industrial building in Penryn.

Paul Gibbons was carrying out re-roofing work when he fell eight metres through a fragile part of the asbestos cement roof onto the floor below. He was taken to hospital but died of his injuries later that day.

An HSE investigation into the incident found that the company had failed to put adequate safety measures in place at the site despite the risks involved with working at height.

Truro Crown Court heard that the work had not been adequately planned and no safety nets or crash deck platforms had been provided to mitigate the effects of a fall.

HSE Inspector, Jon Harris, speaking after the hearing, said: "Mr Gibbons’ death could have been prevented if the work had been planned properly and industry standards, such as providing netting, had been applied. The risks of working at height are well-known and falls through fragile materials are the cause of one in five deaths in the construction industry."

A Preston steel firm has appeared in court after a working platform slid off the forks of a forklift truck and struck one of its employees.

The 50-year-old fractured a rib, and suffered muscle and back injuries when he was hit by the heavy metal platform. 

The company, which manufactures and supplies steel products, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive after an investigation found the platform had not been secured to the forklift, and instead was just resting on the forks.

Preston Magistrates' Court was told the truck was being used to lift a pile of steel mesh when the platform slid off. No one was standing on the platform at the time, but the injured worker was on the ground nearby.

The company pleaded guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 by failing to ensure the safety of its employees. It was fined £7,000 and ordered to pay £3,566 in prosecution costs.

According to the latest figures, nearly 4,000 people suffered a major injury while working in the manufacturing industry in Great Britain in 2010/11 and 27 lost their lives.

The government has been accused of hiding behind statistics, as workplace deaths are underestimated by more than 800%, trade union Unite has said.

The comments came in the run-up to International Workers' Memorial Day, which took place on Saturday 28th April. Unite has accused ministers of introducing ‘light touch’ health and safety regulations and called for an increase - not a decrease - in the number of inspectors and workplace inspections.

Unite’s general secretary Len McCluskey said: “Using the official statistics enables the government to suggest that UK health and safety is better than everywhere else, and provides an excuse, albeit a very thin excuse, for cutting the health and safety responsibilities of UK employers.

“This is a complete myth, since the real number of people killed in work-related incidents each year is probably closer to 1,400, over eight times the official Health and Safety Executive figure for 2011 of 171.”

In addition, at least 20,000 more women and men die every year - some estimates put this as high as 50,000 people - from occupational diseases, such as mesothellioma and cancers caused by negligent exposures at work to hazardous substances, such as asbestos, chemicals and dusts.

Unite is calling for:

• No reduction in the legal protection for workers on health and safety.
• Those who create risk must be held accountable.
• No freedom from inspections and an increase in inspector numbers.
• Recognition and support for the role that union safety representatives play.
• More action to prevent occupational diseases.

The British Safety Council (BSC) has launched its health and safety manifesto, 'Working Well', which sets out five steps to help improve workplace safety and reduce the number of work related injuries.

According to the BSC, there are still too many people being killed or injured at work. Figures quoted by the BSC show that there were 26,000 major injuries and 26.4 million working days lost due to work-related illness and workplace injury in Britain in 2010/11. Globally, around 2.2 million workers are killed each year.

Alex Botha, chief executive of the British Safety Council, said: “Our vision is that no-one should be killed, injured or made ill through work activities. Our goal is to bring together influential players, including politicians and opinion formers, to help focus on what we need to do make that vision a reality. Health and safety, when properly and sensibly managed, produces immense business, economic and social benefits.”

The Health and Safety Executive has advised that the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 came into force on 6th April 2012, updating previous asbestos regulations to take account of the European Commission's view that the UK had not fully implemented the EU Directive on exposure to asbestos.

In practice the changes are fairly limited. They mean that some types of non-licensed work with asbestos now have additional requirements, i.e. notification of work, medical surveillance and record keeping. By April 2015, all workers/self employed doing notifiable non-licensed work with asbestos must be under health surveillance by a doctor. Workers who are already under health surveillance for licensed work need not have another medical examination for non-licensed work, but medicals for notifiable non-licensed work are not acceptable for those doing licensed work.

All other requirements remain unchanged, including:

• Persons responsible for maintenance of non-domestic premises have a 'duty to manage' the asbestos in them, to protect anyone using or working in the premises from the risks to health that exposure to asbestos causes.
• Before carrying out any building or maintenance work in premises, or on plant or equipment that might contain asbestos, it is necessary to identify where it is and its type and condition; assess the risks, and manage and control these risks.
• The requirements for licensed work remain the same: in the majority of cases, work with asbestos needs to be done by a licensed contractor. This work includes most asbestos removal, all work with sprayed asbestos coatings and asbestos lagging and most work with asbestos insulation and asbestos insulating board.

Contains public sector information published by the Health and Safety Executive and licensed under the Open Government Licence v1.0.

A laboratory testing firm has been prosecuted after putting workers at its Tyneside premises at risk of exposure to asbestos.

An investigation was launched into the activities of Exova (UK) Limited following a complaint the company had not dealt with damaged asbestos at its site despite being recommended to do so on two previous occasions.

Newcastle Magistrates' Court heard the company's own accredited asbestos testing branch carried out a survey of the premises in October 2008. Damaged asbestos was identified by this branch in two separate areas of the site and the survey stated the damaged asbestos should be removed, repaired or sealed off.

A further survey was completed in February 2010 and again stated the previously identified damaged asbestos was still there and repeated its earlier recommendation.

HSE inspector Andrew Woodhall visited the site in July 2010 and found the recommendations of the two earlier surveys had still not been implemented and employees were continuing to access and work in areas where damaged asbestos was present. He then instigated enforcement action.

The company was fined a total of £36,000 (£12,000 for each offence) and ordered to pay £8,000 costs after it pleaded guilty to three breaches of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006.

Asbestos-related diseases are responsible for around 4,000 deaths a year. Working on or near damaged asbestos-containing materials or breathing in high levels of asbestos fibres could increase your chances of getting an asbestos-related disease.

Trade Unions have welcomed the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court which will affect many of the 2,500 people who are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year.

Mesothelioma is a terminal form of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Mesothelioma has an unusually long gestation period, which can be in excess of 40 years between exposure to asbestos and manifestation of the disease.

Insurance companies had tried to argue that employer's liability policies only covered mesothelioma which manifested as a disease at some point during the relevant policy period. The Supreme Court has rejected these arguments, which would have denied compensation to victims of the terminal disease, and ruled that the insurers of an employer at the time of the exposure to asbestos should pay compensation.

In his judgment Lord Clarke concluded that: “The whole purpose of these policies was to insure employers against liability to their employees. That purpose would be frustrated if the insurers’ submissions on this point were accepted.”

Lord Phillips added that diseases are contracted when the process that leads to them is initiated as a result of wrongful exposure to the noxious substance that causes the disease.

The judgment went on to emphasise that these principles apply not only to mesothelioma but also to other industrial diseases.

An engineering and construction company has been fined £250,000 for safety failings after a surveyor was killed by a reversing lorry during work to widen the M25 near Dartford.

Richard Caddock was talking on a mobile phone and could not hear the approaching truck above the noise of nearby motorway traffic, when he was hit from behind in 2008.

The Health and Safety Executive prosecuted his employer Costain Limited for failing to ensure adequate precautions were in place to separate the movements of people and vehicles.

Maidstone Crown Court heard that Mr Caddock had left a parked van and was walking northbound along a section of the central reservation closed off as part of a £65 million scheme to ease congestion between junctions 1b to 3.

As he talked on the phone, a tipper lorry delivering crushed stone entered the same section and reversed northbound. Mr Craddock had walked approximately 30m when the truck hit him.

The surveyor sustained multiple injuries as a result of being run over by the eight wheel vehicle and was pronounced dead at the scene.

After the hearing HSE Inspector Melvyn Stancliffe said:

"This was a terrible tragedy that could easily have been avoided had Costain Limited implemented basic safety precautions.

"The movement of people and vehicles on construction sites requires careful planning and effective control. It must be considered a critical part of transport management. This case highlights that a failure to be in control can have devastating consequences."

A countryside management firm has been sentenced over the death of a father-of-four in Barrow-in-Furness, who was struck by a piece of metal that flew off a strimmer at high speed.

Tony Robinson died after a link from a chain, spinning at around 300 miles an hour on a petrol strimmer, became detached and struck him on the back of the neck, causing fatal injuries.

Mr Robinson, a self-employed contractor, had been hired to help clear undergrowth at the site during the construction of the new Waterfront business park. He was using a chainsaw to cut back the overgrown vegetation, with another worker using the strimmer on a nearby bank.

The chain attachment had been added to the strimmer so it could be used for more heavy-duty work. But the HSE investigation found ThreeShires had not properly considered the risks of using the attachment, and had allowed Mr Robinson to work close to where the strimmer was being operated.

The company pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 by failing to ensure the safety of workers and was fined £15,000 and ordered to pay £10,000 in prosecution costs.

HSE issued a Safety Alert following Mr Robinson's death, warning that there was a risk of death or serious injury from the use of the strimmer attachment.

It also served an immediate Prohibition Notice against the sole importer of the chain attachments in the UK, which resulted in a nationwide ban on the sale or supply of the product.

The attachment has now also been banned across Europe, after HSE alerted the European Commission to the issue.

Two former businessmen have been sentenced by an Italian court to 16 years in jail for negligence that contributed to the asbestos related deaths of over 2,000 people, reports the Scotsman.

Stephan Schmidheiny, from Switzerland, was the former owner of Swiss construction firm Eternit, and Jean Louis Marie Ghislain De Cartier De Marchienne, from Belgium, was a former executive and shareholder. They were charged with deliberately failing to implement measures to prevent damage from asbestos exposure at the firm's fibre cement making plants in Italy.

The trial began in December 2009, and since then has heard evidence linking 2,100 deaths to exposure to asbestos fibres at the plants.

The court also awarded financial compensation to over 6,300 victims or family members of people who died or became ill as a result of asbestos exposure while working at the factories.

A 23-year-old man died from massive crush injuries when his head became trapped in the jaws of a grab machine being wrongly used to move a pallet of cement bags.

Steven Allen was part of a team working for Skipton-based construction company JN Bentley Ltd on a building project for Bradford Council in March 2007. Moving the 30 or so cement bags was to be the last job before the weekend when the incident happened.

Bradford Crown Court heard that workers used a block grab attached to an excavator to move the load. As they did, the bags fell two metres to the ground, but the pallet remained in the jaws of the block grab. The pallet pivoted and Steven Allen took hold of it to pull it free. As the pallet came away, the jaws dropped and clamped on Steven’s head, causing severe injuries. He died the following day.

After an investigation, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) mounted the prosecution against Mr Allen’s employers. The court was told the HSE’s findings revealed that the grab was being used against manufacturer’s instructions and was not suitable for the job. Block grabs are designed to lift and move rectangular loads strapped together such as packs of bricks. The company had also failed to implement a safe system for lifting and transporting the bags of cement.

The company had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. It was fined £106,250 and ordered to pay costs of £90,000.

HSE Principal Inspector, Dave Redman, said:

"It shouldn’t take a death to remind employers that failure to properly plan the work can have tragic consequences. An alternative way of lifting the pallet should have been used. Pallets are designed to be lifted using fork attachments which could have been fitted to the excavator.  This would have prevented the incident which led to Steven Allen’s death. If employers take their eye off the ball, it’s all too easy for otherwise safe and routine tasks to turn into unacceptable risks."

A specialist crane supplier has been fined £180,000 after a worker was killed when a large steel beam fell on him at an incinerator in Slough, Berkshire.

Colin Dickson, 38, of Motherwell, died when the temporary suspension points on a suspended beam he was under failed. The 1.4 tonne beam fell five metres onto Mr Dickson causing fatal injuries to his chest, and fractures to his legs and back.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Mr Dickson's employers J H Carruthers Ltd and one of its supervisors after an investigation into how the lifting operation failed.

The HSE investigation found that the lifting operation could have been successful if the whole process had been planned, appropriately supervised and carried out in a safe manner from the outset.

HSE's Inspector Karen Morris said:

"This tragic incident shows the importance of carrying out a thorough assessment of hazards and properly managing all lifting operations. This was a complex and unusual lift which went drastically wrong due to a lack of competent planning and a failure to supervise and carry out the task safely. The risks involved in such lifting operations should not be underestimated.

"Health and safety law places stringent requirements on employers in these circumstances, for very good reason. This incident was entirely preventable and it should act as a reminder to others that standards need to be maintained to ensure the safety of workers at all times."

J H Carruthers Ltd pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The firm was fined £180,000 and ordered to pay costs of £74,000.

A construction company and its managing director have been sentenced after a father-of-two was crushed to death when a crane overturned in Liverpool.

Richard Mark Thornton, 46, from Longridge near Preston, died when a 50-tonne crane toppled over while moving a steel column in March 2007.

Mr Thornton's employer and the managing director of the company were prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for failing to make sure the work was planned and carried out safely.

Liverpool Crown Court heard the crane had been used to lift the six-tonne steel column when it was nearly 18 metres away, taking it well outside its safe lifting capacity for that distance.

The HSE investigation found the crane had not been properly maintained and the external alarm could not be heard by those working nearby. The override switches were also faulty, including the switch that prevented the crane lifting loads beyond its capacity.

The managing director was fined £80,000 and ordered to pay £18,478 in prosecution costs. 

Mr Thornton was one of 79 construction workers to be killed while at work in Great Britain in 2006/7. There were also nearly 4,500 major injuries reported to HSE.

A self-employed blacksmith and fabricator has been fined after one of his employees was severely injured when he fell more than seven metres from a roof he was working on.

Martin Mundie, 23, from Aberdeenshire, was part of a team carrying out work at a farm to convert a former pig shed into a workshop.

On 10th March 2009, Mr Mundie and three other workers climbed a ladder onto the roof to begin replacing the sheets and capping. A short time into the work, there was a loud crack and one of Mr Mundie's colleagues turned around to see him disappearing through a skylight. He fell approximately eight metres to the concrete floor below.

He sustained a broken arm and wrist, and needed a bone graft as well as two operations to insert three plates and six pins. He was off work for ten months and still has continuing pain in his arm with numbness and limited movement, as well as the scars left by his operations.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that at no time before work started, or while it was ongoing, had the employer assessed any of the risks involved or put a safe system of work in place. HSE inspectors also found that none of the workers had any safety provision while on the roof.

He was fined £4,500 after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

Falls from height are the most common cause of fatal injuries in the workplace. In 2009/10, 38 people in Britain died after work-related falls from height.

A company and its manager have been fined after two workers were engulfed in a fireball when they cut through a live 1,000 volt electrical cable at an industrial unit in Telford.

The two men had been told to find an underground water leak at an empty industrial unit owned by the company in Telford. They were instructed to dig at a spot outside the unit. Using an electrical drill, they drilled nearly 40cm into the ground until they hit a live 1,000 volt cable.

They were engulfed in a fireball and suffered burns to their hands, arms and faces. Both were airlifted to hospital and one of the men was so seriously injured that for the first few days, doctors believed he might not survive.

HSE's investigation into the incident found that the company had not assessed the risks involved, devised a safe system of work or obtained site plans of the area, checked whether there were any electrical cables underground or used safe digging methods. The two men had also received no training about the dangers arising from underground services.

The court also heard that in issuing instructions to the two men, the company manager had a duty to take reasonable care for their safety. Despite being aware of the guidance which details how to dig safely near underground services, he failed to ensure that proper precautions had been taken before telling them to start work.

The company pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £4,420 costs. The manager pleaded guilty to breaching Section 7(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £2,000 and ordered to pay £1,000 costs.

The TUC has welcomed the Löfstedt report's conclusion that the UK's health and safety laws 'are broadly right', but it has major concerns that the proposals to exempt some self-employed workers could have a devastating impact on their safety.

The comments follow the Government's announcement that it intends to begin a major cut back of health and safety regulation as early as January next year, based on recommendations that have come out of the Löfstedt Review into health and safety legislation. 

The TUC is also disappointed that the report makes no suggestions as to how the protection of employees in the workplace could be improved.

Commenting on the Government-commissioned report, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

'Following last year's review by Lord Young, we've now seen yet another Government review into workplace safety that has concluded that the current system is generally fine.

'Unfortunately, like Lord Young, Professor Lofstedt was only asked to look at the 'burden' on business, not the burden that the failings in the current system have placed on the two million people whose health has been made worse because of their work. Nor has it considered the more than 20,000 people whose lives are cut short every year as a result of a preventable work-related injury or illness. Because of this, not one life will be saved as a result and not one injury or illness prevented. This is very much a missed opportunity.

'Instead the report proposes removing up to one million self-employed workers from the protection of current safety laws. These people, who often work in the most dangerous of jobs, are already much more likely to be killed or injured. There is little doubt that removing the self-employed from the regulations will increase their risk of illness and injury and lead to a rise in the number of bogus self-employed in sectors like construction."

The owner of a Blackpool double-glazing firm has appeared in court after one of his employees was seriously injured in a fall from a ladder.

The 68-year-old fell nearly five metres and landed on a concrete patio after climbing up a ladder to measure a bathroom window on a house in his village. The employee suffered a broken knee and ankle, four broken ribs, a punctured lung and a badly damaged right foot.

The owner was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after an investigation found the worker had been allowed to work alone without anyone at the foot of the ladder to stop it falling.

Blackpool Magistrates’ Court heard the worker has still been unable to return to work due to the extent of his injuries following the fall.

The owner pleaded guilty to a breach of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 by failing to ensure the work was properly planned, adequately supervised and carried out in a safe manner. He was fined £8,000 and ordered to pay £2,000 in prosecution costs.

Speaking after the hearing, the investigating inspector at HSE, Allen Shute, said:

"Workers can easily be killed or seriously injured in a fall of just a few metres. It’s therefore vital employers properly manage work at height."

Last year, 38 workers were killed in Great Britain as a result of a fall and more than 4,000 suffered major injuries.

A Birmingham handyman has been prosecuted after releasing asbestos fibres while refurbishing a kitchen at a flat in Solihull.

Inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found William Rogers, a carpenter and general handyman, had removed partition walls containing asbestos insulating board at the premises.

Solihull Magistrates' Court heard Mr Rogers had wrongly assumed he was dealing with asbestos cement, which does not require specialist contractors to remove it, and went ahead with the job. As a result, both he and the tenant, who has asked not to be named, were potentially exposed to asbestos dust.

Mr Rogers spread asbestos debris in the kitchen and on the communal stairs and loaded the removed pieces of asbestos insulating board into his car. By law it should have been disposed of by an approved carrier of asbestos waste.

The incident was discovered when a licensed asbestos removal contractor, who was working elsewhere in the building, spotted pieces of asbestos outside and alerted HSE. The court heard the area and Mr Rogers' car had to be decontaminated.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE principal inspector Jo Anderson said:

"Tradespeople are highly likely to come across asbestos at some point in their career. They must make sure they are properly trained so that they can identify it and know what to do next and there is a wealth of guidance available on HSE's website to help them.

"If they have not checked what kind of asbestos is present and they have not been trained to work with asbestos, they must not start work.

"The landlord had told William Rogers that the walls contained asbestos, yet he went ahead with the refurbishment without carrying out any checks. The tenant now has to live with the knowledge that he is at risk of developing a serious lung disease in years to come through no fault of his own.”

Asbestos is the biggest single cause of occupational deaths in the UK, with an estimated 4,000 people dying every year from related diseases such as mesothelioma and lung cancer.