NEWS INCOURTS THE BUILDER JAILED AFTER EXPOSING
ROOF WORKERS TO RISKS A self-employed builder has been sentenced after exposing roof workers to fall from height risks.
Wolverhampton Crown Court heard how Mr Ranjit Singh Reehal, a self-employed builder, was contracted by a company in Oldbury in the West Midlands to re-line two valley gutters in a roof during July 2016. Mr Reehal’s workers used an angle grinder to cut back asbestos cement sheeting to allow better access to the gutters and worked without any precautions to prevent a fall from the roof, or through a fragile roof which should not be walked on.
The activity came to the attention of the Health and
Safety Executive (HSE) after workers at the company complained of dust, which they knew to contain asbestos, coming down into the factory below.
A subsequent investigation by HSE found Mr Reehal did not plan, manage or monitor construction work to ensure it was carried out without risks to health and safety.
Mr Reehal of Queen’s Close, Smethwick was found guilty of breaching Regulation 15(2) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2016. He was sentenced to serve 14 months in prison.
After the hearing, HSE inspector Gareth Langston said: “This case shows how important it is that construction contractors plan, manage and monitor work they are paid to carry out. It is important to recognise that it is not wise to ignore an investigation, and you certainly cannot ignore a summons to appear in Court”.
COMPANY PROSECUTED AFTER
EXCAVATOR TRAGEDY A civil engineering contractor has been fined after an employee of Balfour Beatty Group Employment Limited was fatally injured when he was struck on the body by a wheeled excavator.
Aberdeen Sheriff Court heard that between 4 January 2016 and 13 January 2016 Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Limited, being a principal contractor, failed to ensure that the safe system of work for refuelling of all plant and equipment was fully implemented at the construction site of the Third Don Crossing in Aberdeen. As a consequence of that failure, on 13 January 2016, the deceased, who was working at said construction site, was struck by a wheeled excavator which was slewing after being refuelled.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive
(HSE) found that refuelling of plant and equipment was identified as a high-risk activity by the principal contractor who had created a task briefing document detailing a safe system of work and had risk assessed the said activity. However, it is evident that although these procedures existed in documentary format the safe system of work and its control measures had not been fully implemented at the construction site.
Balfour Beatty Civil Engineering Limited of Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London has today pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 13(1) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 and has been fined £600,000.
Speaking after the hearing HSE principal inspector, Niall Miller said: “This was a tragic and wholly avoidable incident, caused by the failure of the civil engineering company to implement safe systems of work, and to ensure that health and safety documentation was communicated and control measures followed.”
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