Here are the heftiest fines given by the courts over the past quarter.
Ladder fall
While removing beading from an external first-floor window frame at a residential home, a worker fell 3m from a ladder, suffering serious injuries including four fractured vertebrae.
Teesside Magistrates’ Court fined Thirteen Housing Group of Stockton-on-Tees £50,000 and ordered it to pay costs of £7,327.
Partial building collapse
Iproject Cheshire was refurbishing a residential building in Didsbury when workers undermined the foundations, causing a partial collapse of the building. There were no injuries or fatalities, but the incident was deemed a risk to life.
Manchester Crown Court fined the Stockport contractor £31,500 and ordered it to pay costs of £13,500.
Hefty fine for repeated failures
When HSE inspectors visited Abercorn Construction’s Tobacco Warehouse site in Liverpool, they discovered a catalogue of health and safety failings including electrical risks and insanitary conditions inside a welfare cabin and multiple issues on site, including electrical hazards, insufficient safety equipment and numerous unprotected edges and openings. And this wasn’t the first time the HSE had visited site and found things wanting.
Liverpool Magistrates’ Court fined Abercorn Construction, of Belfast £77,000 and ordered it to pay costs of £2,025.
Six metre fall
A worker was replacing broken roof sheets using crawling boards to traverse the roof, when his foot slipped from the board and he fell through the fragile roof material, sustaining serious injuries including neck fractures, a collapsed lung and a bleed on the brain.
Swindon Magistrates’ Court fined Trevor Cook Construction of Marlborough, Wiltshire £63,278 and ordered it to pay costs of £6,721.
