Fragile roof fatality takes engineers to court

Prosecutions and Claims |
12.08.2007

An eight-metre fall that fatally injured an installation engineer has led to penalties totalling £53,000 for two businesses. Alan Ellison was killed when he fell through the fragile roof of a farm building in June 2004.

Ellison was working for BK Grain Handling Engineers installing a grain drying hopper at Penfeidr Farm near Haverford West in West Wales. When he and a colleague arrived from Wiltshire on 29 June, they found that the front panels of the roof - which the farm owners Raymond Bros had agreed to remove so the silo could be dropped into the building by crane - were still in place.

Keen to speed up the work, the two men climbed onto  the roof and started to remove the asbestos sheets, when one cracked under Ellison leaving him to fall onto the concrete floor beneath. He was rushed to Withybush Hospital but died on arrival.

At Swansea Crown Court on 28 June, Ellison's employers pleaded guilty to a charge of failing to safeguard him under Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act plus charges of not having access to adequate health and safety advice contrary to Regulation 7(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations and of failing to carry out a proper risk assessment contrary to Regulation 3(1).

Enidvale, trading as BK Grain Handling Engineers, was fined a total of £20,000 and ordered to pay costs in excess of £8,000.

Raymond Bros also pleaded guilty to a Section 2(1) charge of not protecting its employees because the way it had planned to remove the panels prior to Ellison's intervention (before they were held up by bad weather) would have been highly risky.

 "For the side cladding they were going to use a telehandler with people working out of a bucket, which is totally inappropriate," HSE inspector Wayne Williams explained. "And they had a crane with a man basket on site which they were going to use for some of the roof work as well, and that wasn't adequately planned either."

Raymond Bros pleaded not guilty, but was convicted by the Swansea jury and fined £10,000 plus £15,000 costs.