Fractured skull leads to big fine for roofing firm

A ROOFING firm from malton was hit with a large fine following an incident in which one of their employees fell and fractured his skull.

When undertaking work to replace existing rooflights at Monk Bridge Construction Co. in Elvington near York, the employee slipped and fell seven metres through the inner roof sheet. He suffered ‘severe’ injuries.

Mitchell Roofing was fined £11,355 by York Magistrates Court after the Health and Safety Executive found that there was no risk assessment in place and no precautions had been taken to prevent falls on the job.

Mitchell had previously clad a new building on the site without incident, using appropriate precautions, but the minor work of replacing the panels in an existing roof was not planned, and no precautions were followed.

HSE inspector Julian Franklin commented: “Basic precautions for roof work and better planning of the job should have been applied. Even short duration work on fragile roofs should be properly assessed and managed.”