A Castleford scaffolder has been prosecuted after a worker fell to his death from a roof.
Walter Booth (trading as WB Roofing) was carrying out repairs to the roof of Micklegate Methodist Church, Pontefract on 3 September 2012.
A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found the scaffolding edge protection provided by Mr Wayne Morgan (trading as Barnsdale Scaffolding) failed to follow the profile of the roof edge leaving a gap through which 63 year old Mr Booth fell.
Wayne Morgan of Barnsdale Estate, Cutsyke, Castleford, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 8(a) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005, and was sentenced to 200 hours unpaid work and ordered to pay £15,000 in costs by Wakefield Magistrates Court.
After the hearing, HSE inspector Sarah Lee commented: “This was an entirely preventable death. In this case the scaffolding edge protection was not sufficient to prevent a person falling from the roof. The scaffold installation should have been erected correctly, follow the profile of the roof and have no large gaps. The standards for scaffold are well known and have been in place for many years. It is vital that scaffolders ensure that scaffold is erected as per the standards and it is checked after it is erected, to ensure that everything is in place.”
Karl Lanham interesting info bud if you havnt seen it
Not fit for purpose, end of. RIP Me Booth.
A properly erected scaffold should require no roofer to wear a harness as A. the scaffold they are paying for should protect them from falling and B. What are they to clip to as they are working?
A fixed line is no good as they may be on a 30 x 50m roof. So that rules out inertia reels too because of the pendulum effect. If hes fell then thats through blatently insufficient scaffold protection. Rip
I only erect scaffolds ild let my kids play on
Umm thought that was the point of edge protection to stop people falling if it was necessary for the roofer to wear a harness then it should have been put on the scaffolding tag and entered into the f91 and signs displayed wear a harness, my condolences to the roofers family.
Make roofers wear harnesses then