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Builders pay out after employee suffers head injuries

Published 09/02/2007

A Dover-based building firm have been ordered to pay a total of £20,000 after a teenaged employee was left with a fractured skull and a brain haemorrhage, resulting from an accident at work.

Partners Peter Swinbourne and Nicholas Rawlins, joint owners of Dover Building and Property Maintenance, were successfully prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work Act following the accident last year.

Trainee builder Martin Sankey sustained the serious injuries while working on the second floor of a new development.

After blacking out, Mr Sankey fell 19 feet through an exposed lift well, hitting the ground floor.

Commenting on the incident, health and safety inspector John Underwood said: "The construction industry continues to have a poor record regarding falls from height, which dominate the accident statistics despite a major effort by the industry."

"This accident was totally preventable in that a very basic timber or scaffold edge protection barrier would have prevented anyone working near the lift well or moving past it from falling."

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