Live cable was left for 5 months before explosion

Prosecutions and Claims |
14.04.2008

A court has heard how a scaffolder was engulfed in flames and his colleague was thrown to the ground after one of them stumbled onto a live cable at a construction site.

The accident happened in March 2006 at a housing development site on Great George Street in Liverpool.

A few months earlier, in October 2005, workers at the site had discovered a metal pipe that was sparking. They identified it as a live cable.

SP Power Systems, a subsidiary of Scottish Power, were called in and they sealed the end of the pipe. But they failed to make it clear to the site's management that the cable was still live, so work was allowed to continue.

On 8 March, 28-year-old scaffolder Peter Mason and his colleague, 17-year-old plasterer Kieran Williams, were working in the building when one of them tripped and fell onto the cable, which exploded.

Mason took the force of the blast and had to run 40 metres out of the building in flames before he could extinguish them in a puddle. He was taken to the Royal Liverpool Hospital and later transferred to a specialist burns unit.

SP Power Systems pleaded guilty at Liverpool Crown Court to failing to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of non-employees, contrary to Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

The firm was fined £32,000 and ordered to pay £15,000 costs.

HSE inspector Wayne Crumpton said: "This was an entirely avoidable incident that caused horrific injuries.

"SP Power Systems should have made it clear to the site management team that the cable remained live and their own systems should have alerted them to that fact.

"The cable was still live and should have been made safe by one of their own follow-up gangs very shortly after their first visit to the site.

"This incident could so easily have resulted in multiple fatalities and the message must go home to all those responsible for electrical systems on construction sites that this is a harsh environment and one that needs managing well."