Health and Safety in the news this
week
Devastating Fire at the Country’s Oldest Hotel
Firefighters are still tackling
the remaining hotspots at the historic coaching inn after the blaze broke out
above the nearby Castle Fine Art gallery on Friday 28th October.
Structural engineers were
meeting on Sunday 30th October to discuss how to demolish parts of
the hotel after flames gutted the interior and left the frontage on the brink
of collapse. It is not known when the
demolition will take place.
Crews are unable to enter the
building because it is too unstable and have instead been using aerial ladder
platforms to tackle the remaining pockets of fire.
The Bishop of Exeter said:
“All the historic stuff inside
has gone, you can't replace it, but at least I hope and pray that they rebuild
the frontage as it was because it deserves to be there because that's what will
preserve at least the veneer of the architectural continuity on the Cathedral
Green".
He said it was "deeply,
deeply sad" to see the hotel - which escaped the 1942 Blitz by German
bomber planes - in ruins, but said the damage could have been "a lot
worse" to neighbouring buildings if the wind direction was different.
Around 150 firefighters from
across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset tackled the blaze at its height - pumping
water from the River Exe to put it out.
Local residents were asked to
restrict their water use to make as much as possible available for use by
emergency services.
The Bishop said the cathedral
was covered in "black acrid smoke" from the fire, while the gas
supply was turned off after a ruptured gas main was found to be fuelling the
flames.
The fire service said their
teams were "still working hard at the Royal Clarence", and added:
"They are controlling "hotspots" and monitoring the building
structure."Jail sentence for construction skills card cheat
A Luton man has been jailed for 18 months and
recommended for deportation for illegally working in the UK and cheating to
obtain industry skills cards.
Indian national, Manjit Multani, paid someone to sit
the health and safety tests required to obtain the Construction Skills
Certification Scheme card and Construction Plant Certification Scheme card.
A Construction Industry Training Board investigation
found he was using the cards to work on building sites across London and Milton
Keynes.
Multani also used a number of fake names in order to
work illegally in the UK.
He was arrested by Home Office Immigration Enforcement
officers in February but failed to answer his bail.
He was then arrested again on motoring offences when
they discovered he was wanted by police.
He pleaded guilty in Luton Crown Court to eight
charges including misuse of identity documents and fraudulently obtaining leave
to remain in the UK.
Ian Sidney, Fraud Investigator at the CITB led the
investigation into Multani’s cards and qualifications and immediately revoked
his CPCS card in February after the tip off from the Home Office. He assisted the Home Office with their
investigation and provided a witness statement which was considered during
sentencing.
He said: “The risks these people pose when illegally
working in the construction industry are huge, so it’s encouraging to see that
those who do brought to justice. Fraud
is incredibly damaging to the reputation of the industry and worse, it puts
people’s lives in jeopardy. Building
sites can be hazardous if workers do not have the relevant training and
qualifications, so it is lucky one was injured. We simply will not tolerate any
illegal activities and will continue to work with the police to prosecute
fraudsters.”
Source: www.constructionenquirer.com
Number of directors prosecuted
by HSE trebles in a year
The number of company directors
who have been prosecuted for health and safety offences has trebled in a year,
according to research from a law firm.
Using data from the Health and
Safety Executive (HSE), Clyde & Co’s research shows that the number of
company directors and managers prosecuted by the HSE in the year to 31 March
2016 was 46, compared to 15 in the previous year.
In contrast, the number of
employees who were prosecuted by the HSE in 2015/16 has fallen from 10 in the
previous year, to just one.
Of the 46 prosecutions in
2015/16, 34 were found guilty and 12 were given prison sentences, with the
longest prison sentence imposed at two years.
Fines on the increase
Following the introduction of
the sentencing guidelines in February this year, the value of fines imposed by
the HSE is also on the rise.
The total value of fines
imposed has risen by 43 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Between February 2016 and
August 2016, health and safety fines totalled £20.6 million, compared to £14.4
million in February 2015 to August 2015.
However, the HSE figures don’t include sentences imposed in cases
prosecuted by local authorities.
In the past few weeks alone
there have been a number of high value, high profile fines, including:- Network
Rail fined £4 million for the death of an elderly woman at a
railway crossing
- £1.6
million fine for Foodles Production company after
Harrison Ford was injured on the set of Star Wars
- A
£5
million fine for Merlin Entertainments after a
rollercoaster crash at Alton Towers left two girls having to have their
legs amputated.
The worrying thing for company
directors is that fines are now routinely hitting the £1 million mark for
non-fatal offences and even those where nobody has been injured meaning that
any breach of the Health
and Safety at Work Act is now potentially a serious threat to a
company’s bottom line.”
The sentencing
guidelines for health and safety, corporate manslaughter, food
safety and hygiene offences came into force following a consultation in 2015.
The size of fine given depends on the size of the company, the level of
culpability of the company and the harm caused.
Clyde & Co’s analysis of
the sentencing trend suggests that “medium” sized organisations – those with a
turnover of between £10m–£50m – are feeling the biggest impact at the moment.
They commented: “The definitive
guideline on sentencing health and safety matters is biting hard, but there is
unquestionably more pain to come. We already know the Court of Appeal has paved
the way for fines equal to 100 per cent of a business’ pre-tax net profit with
what appears to be a desire to bring regulatory criminal fines in line with
financial services fines.”
In June 2015, the Court of
Appeal delivered a judgement in a case against Thames Water Utilities Ltd to
uphold a £250,000 fine for polluting a nature reserve.
Clyde & Co argues that this sends a
warning that convicted companies should expect fines to be in the millions of
pounds where repeated operational failures occur.
Simon Joyston-Bechal, director,
Turnstone Law, argued last year that very large companies (those whose turnover
very greatly exceeds £50m) could
face fines in excess of £100m.
Clyde & Co urged directors
to pay attention to the fines being imposed: “Whilst health and safety has for
many years featured prominently on many Board Meeting agendas, time spent on
the point has not necessarily been significant. However, with the risk of
turnover related health and safety fines now being so large, they are now
material from an accounting and governance perspective which demands that all
directors, executive and non-executive alike, sit up and take note.”
HSE prosecution round up:
Worker seriously injured in mobile platform fall
A Buckinghamshire waste
equipment maintenance firm has been fined after a worker suffered serious
head injuries when a mobile elevating work platform (MEWP) overturned.
Geoffrey Hatton, 49, from
County Durham, was in the process of dismantling a compactor at a site in
Wilmslow, Cheshire when the incident occurred on the 19th January
2015.
Minshull Street Crown Court
heard that Mr Hatton, who was in the MEWP, and a colleague, were taking large
pieces of cladding off the frame of a compactor. A large piece of the cladding
came into contact with the MEWP and caused it to fall over. Mr Hatton
fractured his skull and two ribs in the incident and spent two months in
hospital.
An investigation by the Health
and Safety Executive (HSE) found serious safety failings by Cole Mechanical
Services Ltd. The MEWP was being used outside when it was only suitable for
internal work, the firm’s employees were not trained in how to use MEWPS
or how to safely erect tower scaffolding, and no risk assessment had
been conducted for the work being carried out. In addition, at
the time of the incident another worker was working on a fragile roof with
no protection to prevent falls.
Cole Mechanical Services Ltd of
Ashbridge Road, Chesham, Buckinghamshire pleaded guilty to a breach of Section
2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £30,000 and
ordered to pay costs of £8995.00.
Farming and drilling contractors fined after mast strikes power
line
Two Norfolk-based companies
have been fined after a worker suffered life-changing injuries following an
overhead power line strike.
Norwich Crown Court heard that
L F Papworth Ltd and T W Page & Son Ltd had organised drilling work for the
purposes of crop irrigation at Felmingham, Norfolk.
On 29 April 2014 Jonathan
Howes, an employee of T W Page & Son Ltd, was operating the controls of a
lorry mounted drilling rig. A colleague moved the lorry and its mast came
into contact with an 11kV power line over a field. Mr Howes suffered serious
injury including extensive burns to his scalp, arms, legs and feet and loss of
two toes.
A Health and Safety Executive
(HSE) investigation into the incident found that neither company had taken
effective precautions to prevent work equipment, including the mast of the
drilling rig, which was capable of extending to a height greater than that of
the powerlines, from coming into contact with them.
L F Papworth Ltd of Felmingham,
Norfolk pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at
Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £134,000 with £6484.45 costs.
T W Page & Son Ltd of
Frettenham, Norfolk pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 2(1) of the Health
and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £80,400 with £6596.05 costs.
After the hearing, HSE
Inspector Jessica Churchyard said:
“This tragic incident has had
devastating consequences for Jonathan Howes and his family. Similar incidents involving overhead power
line strikes remain all too common in Great Britain and are almost always
entirely avoidable. Duty holders
planning, organising and carrying out such work must ensure that site-specific
risks are identified and controlled. Where hazardous electrical conductors need
to be kept live, workers and equipment must be kept at a safe distance from
them. Here, no effective precautions
were implemented and workers were put at potentially lethal risk with Mr Howes
suffering injuries which will affect him for the rest of his life.”
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