Housebuilder fined after worker suffers electric shock
A HOUSEBUILDER received a fine of £8,000 following an incident which saw one of its employees knocked unconscious after receiving a major electric shock from a live cable.
Wain Homes (North West) of Warrington was also ordered to pay more than £2,000 in costs by Trafford Magistrates Court on December 23.
The court heard that the employee, who asked not to be named, had been working on a Wain Homes project to refurbish an old farm house on Smethurst Lane in Pemberton as part of a new housing development when the incident took place on November 12, 2010.
The 42 year-old from Bickershaw, near Leigh, cut into a live electricity cable on the site after he was told that it did not have power running through it. The resulting shock threw him across the cellar he was working in and knocked him unconscious. The court heard that the incident has caused the worker to suffer serious psychological harm.
An investigation by the Health & Safety Executive found that found that a construction plan, prepared ahead of the building work starting, had identified live electricity cables as being a potential danger. But Wain Homes did not check existing cables to see if they were live or properly isolated. Inspectors also discovered that a gas pipe, serving a neighbouring property, had been damaged by a digger more than two months earlier, on 25 August 2010.
Speaking after the hearing, Thomas Merry, the investigating inspector at HSE, said: “This was a serious incident which has left one worker with psychological scarring, but it could easily have resulted in several people being badly injured or even killed.
“Building firms carrying out work on sites where there are existing power supplies must make sure they are located and tested before starting work.
“It’s astonishing that Wain Homes failed to do this, especially after a gas pipe was damaged on the site more than two months before the incident because the company hadn’t carried out the proper checks.”
