Spray booth fall brings SME £5000 penalty

Prosecutions and Claims |
06.06.2008

Powder coating company Spray-Craft Coating has been fined £5000 for an incident in which one of its employees fell off the top of a spray booth, suffering fractures of the wrist and shoulder and bleeding to his brain. The 57-year-old worker, one of only three at the company's workshop at Irchester, Northamptonshire, was removing the fan on the roof of the booth on 19 May last year, when he fell 2.6 metres to the floor. He spent a fortnight in an induced coma.

HSE inspector Peter Snelgrove said the accident could be traced to the company's failure to have a safe working plan for the work at height on the booth.

Wellingborough magistrates fined Spray-Craft Coating £5,000 plus £1,100 costs for breaching Regulation 4 (1)(a) and Regulation 6 (3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 by failing to take suitable and sufficient measures to prevent falls in their workplace and failing to ensure work was properly planned.