Rokbuild pays £200,000 for its "hands off" approach

Prosecutions and Claims |
15.10.2007

A national building firm's laissez-faire approach to site management has left an untrained labourer paralysed from the waist down. The accident, in which Christopher Feeley suffered severe injuries to his spinal cord and vertebrae, cost principal contractor Rokbuild nearly £200,000 in fines and costs. The firm's subcontractor and Feeley's employer Robert Blackmore (trading as RB Contractors) had to pay £6,000.

Feeley was hurt on 16 March 2004 while working on a Rokbuild site at Sir John Moore Barracks in Winchester. He was driving a dumper, although he had no driving licence, when the front wheels slipped into a small trench. An untrained fellow worker tried to use the bucket of a mini excavator to pull the dumper out of the trench but when the bucket slipped down, it hit Feeley in the back.

"Rokbuild's 'hands off' approach at this project meant that they appointed an inexperienced and untrained contracts manager and site manager. They took on a subcontractor without checking their competence, and then failed to properly supervise the work," said Richard Boland, the HSE's construction operations manager for London and the east/south east. Neither Blackmore nor any of his employees had any training in the use of plant. The dumper had been overturned eight days before Feeley's accident, but Rokbuild's poor supervision meant the contractors were able to keep the incident from site managers.

Rokbuild pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act for failing to protect non-employees and Regulation 5(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 for not implementing appropriate arrangements for managing health and safety.

Blackmore admitted a charge under Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act in that he failed to ensure the safety of employees. At Winchester Crown Court on 7 September, Judge Boney fined Rokbuild £175,000 and ordered it to pay £23,733 costs. He fined Blackmore £5000 plus £1,000 costs.

"The judge felt that Rokbuild's failings were the principal causes of this incident," said Boland, "and that if Rokbuild had properly assessed the competence of their subcontractor, and then arranged for competent supervision, it would have been inconceivable that this incident would have happened."