Firm fined £5,000 over workman's scaffold fall

A SWINTON glazing firm has been ordered to pay more than £5,000 for health and safety breaches after an employee was hurt when he fell more than ten feet from an unsafe scaffold.

Premier Security Glazing, of Marriot Road, was fined £2,500, with £2,600 costs, after Phillip Pears, then 20, broke his wrist in the incident while replacing fascias at a house in York in June 2009.

A Health and Safety Executive investigation found that Mr Pears, another colleague and Premier’s managing director had erected two tower scaffolds ten feet apart.

Wooden boards were then spaced across the gaps to make one extended platform from which to work. There were no handrails on the scaffolds or the boards.

Mr Pears climbed a ladder leaning against the scaffold and stepped onto an unsecured board which had been used in erecting the tower.

The board slipped and he fell 3.5 metres to the pavement below, fracturing his wrist and bruising his back.

York Magistrates Court was told that Mr Pears had not been trained in the safe use of tower scaffolds, but was regularly expected to use them.