Caradon District Council has been fined for 'serious' breaches of Health and Safety regulations after magistrates heard how a worker fell through an asbestos garage roof, breaking his nose and wrists. The council admitted failing to ensure that work carried out at height was properly planned and supervised and failing to ensure the proper management of Health and Safety rules. It was fined £1,000 on each count, with £2,000 prosecution costs and a £15 Victims' Surcharge. The court was told that a compensation claim is proceeding in the civil courts. HM Inspector of Health and Safety Daniel Hutley told the court in Bodmin on Tuesday that council employee Roy Roseveare suffered a broken nose and fractured wrists when he fell through the asbestos roof of a garage he had been repairing in Fore Street, Millbrook in June of last year. He had been using two sheets of plywood as crawling boards. In order to climb on to the roof he had to close the garage door and when the boards broke through the asbestos he fell 2.5 metres to the concrete floor. Fortunately, said Mr Hutley, he was able to let himself out of the garage and make his way to the garage tenant's home, in spite of his injuries. Mr Hutley said a full Health and Safety Executive investigation was mounted which found that Mr Roseveare had not been using the correct equipment for working on an asbestos roof. He was working alone, with the door of the garage shut, in an area with no mobile phone reception. His supervisor knew he was doing it, but no risk assessment of the task had been carried out. Normally, said Mr Hutley, the council would have contracted out such work but when Mr Roseveare was asked to compete the roof repair by the tenant, while carrying out work on the door lock, he was told by his supervisor to go ahead. Although the council had an arrangement to hire the necessary equipment for the job, this was not done. There was a 'clear failing' within the Direct Services Organisation, part of the council's housing department, to provide the necessary training and to follow Health and Safety regulations in respect of working at heights.
