£15,000 fine calls time on InBev's unsafe roof work

Prosecutions and Claims |
01.06.2007

InBev UK, brewers of Stella Artois, Boddingtons and Murphy's beers, has been fined £15,000 after an employee working at height with no risk assessment or method statement fell 4.3 metres, biting off his own tongue.

In July 2005, maintenance engineer Brynley Allen was working on the valves of a cooling system on the brewery roof at Magor in Monmouthshire when he stepped onto a 30-year-old brittle plastic rooflight.

HSE inspector Sarah Baldwin-Jones said Allen's maintenance team had been making temporary repairs to the system, which was not on the brewery's planned preventative maintenance schedule, all through the summer. "These valves kept on failing," said Baldwin-Jones, "and they kept going up there and praying the repairs would last till the end of the month."

She said the work on the roof involved no risk assessment, method statement or safe system of work. "There was no mention of work at height in their safety policy," she added. The roof was also covered in moss, adding a slip hazard. Allen suffered a fractured pelvis and broken wrists as well as severing his tongue.

InBev UK was fined £15,000 and ordered to pay £5,076 costs at Newport Crown Court on 27 April for a breach of Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act. After the incident, the company replaced the plastic skylights with safety glass.