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March/April 2023 issue

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Construction
News

Double manslaughter conviction for construction co

Open-access content Tuesday 28th June 2016
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 3 years old.

Monavon Construction pleaded guilty to two counts of corporate manslaughter and to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act at the Old Bailey on 9 May. Sentencing took place on 27 June.

British Transport Police officer Gavin Brewer, 32, and television producer Stuart Meads, 34, had been out drinking together. The pair were seen on CCTV walking along a street in the early hours of the morning on 19 October 2013.

They started arguing and one pushed the other against the building site perimeter hoarding that was on Netley Street at the junction with Hampstead Road. The hoarding gave way and Brewer and Meads fell head first, 4 m down an uncovered lightwell that was part of a basement flat under construction by Monavon.

The two men sustained fatal head and neck injuries and were pronounced dead at the scene.

Oliver Glasgow, QC, prosecuting, said the hoarding was not of sufficient height or strength, and for at least two months there had been no cover on the lightwell. He said there were many occasions in the days leading up to the accident when access to the site was unprotected.

The Metropolitan Police and the Health and Safety Executive launched a joint investigation and found that the hoardings had been fixed in such a way that only negligible force would have been required to make them give way.

Sentencing, Judge Paul Worsley QC said the deaths were an "accident waiting to happen" and "wholly preventable", Associated Press reported.

"This was not an isolated incident -- the court must mark this by fines that I accept are very heavy," he said.

Monavon, which has an annual turnover of around £500,000, was fined £250,000 each for the deaths of Brewer and Meads plus £50,000 for the health and safety breach to be paid in two years. It was given six months to pay £23,653 in prosecution costs.

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 Apprentice burned by blowing power line

Thursday 23rd June 2016
Rodd McFarlane, 20, was carrying out repairs at Waulkmill Cottage in Perth and erected a tower scaffold for repointing work.  On 2 August 2012, McFarlane was on the scaffold when a gust of wind blew one of the 240v electricity power lines supplying the cottage. It brushed against his back and he instinctively turned and grabbed the live wire. The current made him unable to let go for a few seconds. He sustained burns to both hands, requiring graft surgery and a possible future amputation of one of his little fingers.
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 Worker in excavator crush on school demolition site

Tuesday 12th July 2016
Complete Demolition had been contracted to demolish a school at Stanney Lane, Ellesmere Port in Cheshire to make way for a new leisure centre. On 27 November 2013, while the site was being cleared, a skip truck driver reversed into a space that a 40 tonne excavator was vacating. Another worker, who was on foot, was standing in the same area. As the excavator manoeuvred it hit him, knocked him to the ground and ran over his foot.
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Image credit: ©REX Shutterstock

 Search resumes for missing Didcot bodies

Monday 18th July 2016
Ken Cresswell, 57, Chis Huxtable, 34, and John Shaw, 61, were trapped underneath rubble on 23 February and have not been found. Michael Collings, 53, was also killed and his body has already been recovered.The decommissioned Didcot A power station in Oxfordshire was due to be demolished when the boiler house partially collapsed on 23 February. A 50 m exclusion zone was then set up around the site after the remaining structure became unstable.
Open-access content
There was a crack in the sidewall of the loading shovel's tyre | Image credit © HSE

 *UPDATE* Untrained fitter killed fixing loading shovel tyre

Monday 27th June 2016
Matthew Hoare, a mobile tyre fitter for Watling Tyre Services (read previous story from earlier this month), was sent out alone to repair the puncture on a wheel of a loading shovel at brick maker Hammill Brick in Kent. He was carrying out a plug repair, when the 1.4 m-diameter tyre failed and exploded.
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 Crane hire worker killed in roof fall

Monday 4th July 2016
The victim was an employee of A-Lift Crane Hire, which had been hired by Premier Roofing Systems to supply a crane to lift roofing sheets at food products supplier Virani Foods’ factory of in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.As the sheets were being lifted onto the roof, the employee fell through an unprotected skylight and died as a result of his injuries.The Health and Safety Executive investigated the accident, which happened on 9 August 2013, and found no preventative measures to allow operatives to work safely on the roof.
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HSE

 *UPDATE* Worker killed by falling boxes at fish wholesalers

Wednesday 6th July 2016
On the day of the accident a ship delivered frozen fish to Interfish’s Plymouth factory. The shrink-wrapped pallets (each weighing approximately one tonne) were moved by forklift into one of the company’s cold stores.  A stack of pallets collapsed after one of the forklift truck drivers noticed it was unsteady and tried to stabilise it by pushing it backwards. No one was injured in this initial fall and three employees were sent into the cold store area to tidy up the fallen boxes.
Open-access content
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