Fall from Height – another serious injury leading to prosecution

The HSE investigates another work fall from height leading to serious injury. Worker will never walk again. A Southwark based construction company has been prosecuted by the HSE and ordered to over £126,000 in fines and court costs after a worker was left paralysed following a fall. The 38 year old worker fell eight metres from an unguarded window space into a basement. He is no longer able to walk or work and has had to overcome major physical and emotional trauma while adjusting to life in a wheelchair.

Southwark Crown Court heard the worker injured by the fall from height was part of a team that was transforming two former Victorian hostels into four single town houses. This conversion project involved demolition and refurbishment as well as some new-build activity. The HSE established that during the course of the work windows were removed from the buildings in an ad-hoc and uncontrolled manner. They were removed at various times and for a variety of reasons, but no suitable controls measures were put in place to prevent a fall from height through the spaces that this created (as could have been achieved by fitting boarding or guard rails). The result of this work method was the creation open voids with no fall protection for a period of about four to six weeks.

Some of the removed windows were on a raised first floor area, creating openings at just above floor level. The worker fell through one of the missing windows in this area while attempting to connect a temporary electricity supply. He lost his balance and fell eight metres onto the concrete floor of a basement below. The court was told the non-guarding of the windows posed a clear danger and that it put multiple Habitat Construction employees and sub-contractors at unnecessary risk of a fall from height because any one of them could have fallen in a similar manner.

Habitat Construction LLP was fined £110,000 and was ordered to pay £16,620 in costs for this fall from height injury after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.  After the hearing, HSE inspector Toby Webb commented:

This was an entirely preventable fall that left an employee with permanent, life-changing injuries.

We found a catalogue of working-at-height risks throughout the site, including the use of simple netting as edge protection to a deep excavation and the removal of windows without installing appropriate protection.

The unguarded windows posed a clear and extremely serious risk, not only for this unfortunate worker but for others at the site who worked near what were effectively open voids.

Sub-contractors were also placed in danger because there was nothing to stop equipment or debris from falling from the window spaces.

The onus was on Habitat Construction to ensure appropriate safety measures were in place, but the company clearly failed its legal responsibilities in this regard.