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Businessman fined over £100k following worker death seven months after fall
A Liverpool businessman has been fined £112,000 after a labourer died following a fall from the roof of an industrial unit. The incident occurred some months after another worker was injured in a fall at the same site.
John McCleary fell 4.5m during the installation of roof panels when he lost his balance whilst working from a narrow beam. No scaffolding had been erected. The 51-year-old father-of-two was paralysed from the waist down and died of pneumonia seven months later, on 27 January 2009, as a result of his injuries.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that businessman Taj ul Malook Mann engaged Mr McCleary to fit the roof panels on an industrial unit he owned without supplying scaffolding. Mr McCleary had to carry out the job while standing on four-inch wide steel beams.
During the HSE investigation, video was discovered which had been filmed by Mr McCleary on his mobile phone in the weeks before his fall. It shows labourers carrying out work while on top of the narrow roof beams.
Warning to other property developers
Taj ul Malook Mann, of Queen’s Drive, Liverpool, admitted four breaches of health and safety regulations after failing to take steps to prevent a fall which could have resulted in injury, and failing to ensure that work on his site was being carried out safely. He also failed to report the incident to HSE. He was fined £112,000 and ordered to pay £19,331 in prosecution costs on 13 January 2012.
Work recorded on mobile phone
Speaking after the hearing, the investigating inspector at HSE, Kevin Jones, said:
“Property developers must understand that health and safety rules need to be adhered to at all times, regardless of how small a project may be.
As the project manager at the site, Mr Mann was in charge of buying in materials and employing people to carry out work, but he completely failed to take any steps to protect his workforce. John McCleary was balancing on narrow beams with absolutely nothing in place to stop him from falling.
Had Mr Mann used scaffolding or netting as he should have done, John McCleary would still be alive today. I sincerely hope that this case acts as a warning to other property developers who think that the law doesn’t apply to them.”