A specialist heavy lifting company has been fined after two men fell from height during the assembly of a crane.  On 19 January 2021, two employees of Osprey Heavy Lift Limited fell as a result of a partial collapse of a platform on a crane at the Port of Blyth, Northumberland.

A Woolwich labourer is ‘lucky to be alive’ after part of a Victorian building fell on him during demolition work in Kilburn, North West London.  MAC Demolition Ltd, the Middlesex firm contracted to carry out the works, has been fined £60,000 after Tommy Brooks was left with life changing injuries. The 57-year-old had been employed on the site as a labourer for three months before the incident.

Pair admit putting public at risk after 270 accidents - including 11 fractured spines - over seven-week period between 2016 and 2017.   Two former directors of a popular trampoline and adventure park face punishment after scores of visitors were 'injured on a daily basis' - including 11 who sustained fractured spines. David Elliott Shuttleworth and Matthew Melling, both 33, pleaded guilty to health and safety offences when they appeared at Chester Crown Court last month.

Inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) will visit farms across England, Scotland and Wales as part of a push to change the culture in the industry and check for compliance with long standing legal requirements.  People on farms are 21 times more likely to be killed in a workplace accident than other sectors.

Barnsdale Hall Hotel, now Rutland Hall Hotel, was ordered to pay a fine of £146,700 after a workplace accident left employee Andrew Veasey with life-changing injuries.  Two employees, including Mr Andrew Veasey, were carrying out the 'non-routine' task of removing a loose tree branch in May 2021 when Mr Veasey was raised up in a 'non-integrated working platform' that was attached to a JCB vehicle parked across a slope. The vehicle toppled over when the platform was raised and crushed the roof of a car before plummeting into a bank.

A health and safety inspector found cladding lying on residents’ balconies at a Liverpool apartment block, posing a serious fire risk.  The combustible cladding was similar to that used on Grenfell Tower when the 2017 disaster occurred. Green Facades Limited had been contracted to remove the potentially dangerous aluminium composite panels and combustible insulation material from The Circle, an eight-storey building on Henry Street in Liverpool.

MD Safety comment:  Not only do the WAH Regulations require safe working for people at height they also require protection to be put in place from falling opbjects.

Three companies have been fined a total of £420,000 after a slate tile fractured the skull of a three-year-old child.  The slate came off a roof at a construction site at the Moonfleet Manor hotel in Weymouth, Dorset, and struck the young girl on 13 June 2019.

The director of a dog food company has been given a suspended prison sentence after a teenage boy severed and lost his finger on his first day working at the firm.  The new starter, who was 16 at the time, had been hired by Finer By Nature after leaving school and began working there on 15 July 2020.

MD Safety comment:  The HSE will always prosecute if Enforcement Notices are not complied with.

A Northwich furniture company has hit out at an 'unfair' £16,000 fine imposed for health and safety breaches.    Pineland Furniture Ltd's Witton Street branch was inspected by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in December 2019 when 'significant' breaches of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH) were found.   This resulted in the business being served six improvement notices being served requiring Pineland to carry out statutory examinations of its wood dust extraction systems and undertake face fit testing for those employees required to wear tight fitting face masks.

MD Safety comment: A risk assessment is an absolute must when employing young people.

A 16-year-old boy suffered serious injuries after becoming trapped under a tractor while on paid work experience.  Tom Cutler was gaining experience of vehicle repair work at Earlcoate Construction & Plant Hire Limited, Folds Farm, in the New Forest, ahead of hopefully starting a vehicle maintenance course at Sparsholt College.