In this post we’ll take a look at some cases that have appeared on the Health and Safety Executive’s website in the last week. These case are useful as they give an indication as to how employers can avoid breaching health and safety laws and ending up in court.
Illegal gas work left Norfolk homes at risk
A self-employed heating installer from King’s Lynn has been fined for illegally carrying out sub-standard gas work at two homes in Norfolk.
Mr Ryan Neale, trading as R. Neale Plumbing and Heating, was fined £2,000 by the King’s Lynn Magistrates’ Court for breaching gas safety regulations by failing to install a gas boiler and a gas fire properly in two separate homes.
Fitter fined for illegal and unsafe gas work
A heating installer has been fined for illegal and unsafe gas work in a London home. Abhishev Yadav, aged 28, of Greenwich, installed a boiler at a property on Penywern Road, Earls Court, that was later classed as “at risk” because the flue was not properly sealed or secured. He was fined a total of £7,500 and ordered to pay £2,500 costs after the Westminster Magistrates’ Court found that he had breached gas safety regulations, leading to the endangering of consumers.
Eight metre fall for trainee lands firm in court
A Hertfordshire firm has been prosecuted for safety breaches after a trainee employee suffered multiple fractures in an eight-metre fall from a roof.
The 22 year-old, from High Wycombe, who does not wish to be named, broke two vertebrae, his left ankle and wrist, fractured his pelvis and tore ligaments in the incident in Poets Road, Highbury, North London, on 3 December 2012. The Westminster Magistrates’ Court fined Nature’s Power Limited £30,000 and ordered it to pay £5,840 in costs after it admitted breaching the Work at Height Regulations 2005.
It’s not currently known whether the trainee will make a personal injury claim against the business.
Linton man in court after waste site death
The driver of a loading shovel has been sentenced for safety failings after he reversed his vehicle into a lorry trailer at a Cambridgeshire waste site, crushing and killing its driver.
Mark Nyland, 34, from Sutton in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, was hit by the tracked loader as he was closing the doors at the rear of his HGV after emptying it of waste and sweeping out debris in a ‘safe area’ on the site. He suffered severe multiple injuries.
The Cambridge Magistrates’ Court found Kenneth Miller, the driver of the loader, guilty of breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. He was ordered to pay costs of £600 and was sentenced to a 24-week prison sentence, suspended for two years.
Illegal gas work left Dunstable home at risk for months
A builder has been jailed for 12 months for illegally carrying out sub-standard gas work at a lone pensioner’s home in Bedfordshire.
Luton Crown Court heard today (9 August 2013) that between 21 January and 30 June 2010, Patrick Regan carried out internal building work, including gas work and other building works affecting gas appliances, at a 65 year-old woman’s house on Luton Road, Dunstable despite not being registered with Gas Safe.
Mr Regan was sentenced to 12 months in prison for breaches of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 and Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. He was also ordered to pay £2,500 towards the prosecution’s costs.
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