Two firm convicted of health and safety breaches after a construction worker fell to his death at a top private school have each been fined £200,000.
James Kelly, 50, was erecting stonework at Glasgow Academy in April 2007 when he fell about 30ft (9m) from scaffolding.
Glasgow Sheriff Court heard how he suffered fatal head and chest injuries.
His employer Stirling Stone Limited and Robertson Construction Central Limited were found to have failed to meet their health and safety obligations.
Robertson Construction, of Elgin, was ordered to pay the fine at a rate of £100,000 per month over the next two months.
Multiple failures
Stirling Stone were ordered to pay £10,000 per month.
Sentencing the firms, Sheriff Sam Cathcart told them that their health and safety procedures had fallen far below the appropriate standards.
“A further aggravating factor against each accused is that this was not a breach of the statute by a single failure,” he said.
In the case against each accused, the Sheriff Cathcart said, there were multiple failures.
He added: “The fines cannot and should not be seen as an attempt to value Mr Kelly’s life in money.”
During the trial, the court heard that Mr Kelly had been employed as a labourer by Stirling Stone Limited, which had been sub-contracted to carry out work by main contractor Robertson Construction. He was working on the third level of a loading tower of the scaffolding when he fell in Glasgow’s Colebrook Street on 26 April 2007. The 50-year-old was taken to the nearby Western Infirmary but pronounced dead on arrival. The court heard from the labourer’s colleague, Stuart McCafferty, who saw him just before he fell. Mr McCafferty, a stonemason, claimed that it looked as though Mr Kelly had stopped for a cigarette. ‘Kept falling’ He said: “He looked like he stopped for a smoke. He leaned against the rail and just kept falling.” Mr McCafferty added that there was often a problem on the site with unqualified workers altering scaffolding instead of trained scaffolders. The witness told the court: “If we couldn’t find a scaffolder, we would do it. “It took too long to get a scaffolder. We shouldn’t have done it but we did.” The court heard that the railing Mr Kelly leaned on was not properly secured with a cuplock to hold it in place. Supervisors should have been aware that staff were changing the scaffolding themselves and stopped it. The companies should also have taken reasonable precautions to prevent Mr Kelly’s death such as arranging set times each day for scaffolders to visit the site to make any necessary changes. The court was told that since Mr Kelly’s death, Robertson Construction and Stirling Stone had made changes to their procedures on site. Via: BBC
The sit-in started today at the Saltend biofuels plant this morning after workers heard that peace talks at conciliation service ACAS broke down last night.
GMB union leaders will host a meeting of engineering construction shop stewards from across the country next week to discuss the deterioration in industrial relations.
The union has also donated £100,000 to a hardship fund for the 430 Saltend workers who lost their jobs last month.
The workers were employed by Redhall Engineering Solutions to carry-out pipework at the plant but Redhall’s contract was terminated by the BP-led client consortium Vivergo Fuels following a dispute over performance.
Workers were hoping to be taken on by a replacement contractor or direct by the client but nothing has been sorted leaving them in limbo and unpaid since early March.
The GMB is vowing to step-up its publicity campaign over the protest and will stage a demonstration outside the BP AGM on Thursday.
Les Dobbs, GMB Senior Organiser said: ”The employers walked out of the ACAS talks yesterday although the unions were prepared to continue talking to try to resolve this dispute. GMB will now press ahead with the protest outside BP’s AGM on Thursday.
“BP and Vivergo know that the site can not be finished until the work done by the Redhall workforce restarts.
“Unions want guarantees that this work will be offered to the locked out workers – who have TUPE rights to this work – but we have had no such guarantees.”
Via: Construction Enquirer 
The Leyton firm, which recently boasted it biggest scaffolding job worth £3m for the Savoy revamp, is now being run by London accountancy specialist SFP.
AGS built up a good reputation in London and the South East over 15 years offering scaffolding services to the building, civil engineering and entertainment industries.
In that time it worked on many major landmark buildings in the capital, including museum Tate Modern and the Savoy Hotel refit.
A source in the industry told the Enquirer: “With the way things are it takes just one bad paying job to cause problems. But its a big surprise that a firm like AGS has run into trouble.
“We understand that another company is in talks with the administrators to buy the assets of the firm, but nobody has heard anything more.”
Via: Construction Enquirer 
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On Tuesday 11 April 2006, just after noon, an independent tied perimeter scaffold collapsed at McAleer & Rushe construction site in Milton Keynes.
The collapse started on the West Elevation (facing Witan Gate), with a partial collapse of the North Elevation (facing Midsummer Boulevard). The scaffold collapse was contained within the Jury’s Inn site boundary. Three workers who were on the scaffold sustained multiple injuries. Sadly, one worker, John Robinson, died 3 days later in hospital.
In 2006 the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) issued a safety alert to the construction industry following this incident. The warning aims to alert those working on similar projects to the importance of their arrangements to provide and maintain stable scaffolds. HSE recommends that those arrangements are reviewed regularly.
Two construction firms involved in the major scaffolding collapse at Milton were ordered to pay £126,000 for their role in the incident which left one man dead and two others seriously injured.
John Robinson, and his son Mark, were working on the Jury’s Inn site in Witan Gate, Milton Keynes alongside Ivan Penkov. All three men were on the 40-metre-high scaffolding when it collapsed.
They fell to the ground and were trapped under rubble until rescue workers could reach them.
Father of three, John Robinson, 49, was taken to hospital suffering from serious injuries to his left leg. Three days later he died from a pulmonary embolism, as a result of the damage to his leg.
John’s son Mark Robinson suffered a punctured lung, broken vertebra and ribs and significant cuts and bruising in the fall. He was unable to work for a period after the incident.
Ivan Penkov suffered serious fractures to his legs and arms and spent a month in hospital recovering. He has undergone a number of operations and has had to re-train as a draftsman.
In Huntingdon Crown Court, the principal contractor on the Jury’s Inn site, McAleer & Rushe Limited of Cookstown, N.Ireland was fined £90,000 and ordered to pay costs of £42,000. The cladder on the site, Lee Smith Carpentry Limited of Romsey, Hampshire was fined £36,000 and ordered to pay costs of £28,000.
The court heard that a combination of failures led to the scaffolding collapse. The scaffolding was not strong or stable enough for the work being carried out. Inspection of the scaffold was also inadequate, despite specific instructions from HSE and McAleer’s health and safety manager.
HSE Principal Inspector Stephen Hartley said:
“John Robinson lost his life in this incident and two others have had their lives changed forever as a result. It’s a wonder that more people weren’t hurt.
“It is totally unacceptable for companies to disregard the safety of their workers. If the scaffolding had been designed, erected and managed properly, this incident would never have happened.”
McAleer & Rushe Limited had earlier pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety At Work etc Act 1974. Lee Smith Carpentry Limited had admitted four breaches of health and safety regulations.
John Robinson’s widow, Christine Robinson, said: “John was a kind, caring man who lived for his family. My children and I have not come to terms with his death; we don’t understand why it had to happen.
“This incident should never have happened if both companies had ensured the safety of those working for them. Every day I miss John so much – my best friend, my soul mate and my future.”
James Elliott allowed the farm to be constructed in underground tunnels at his premises at Walcot Fen, near Billinghay, aiming to make £1,500 a week for himself.
When detectives raided the site in January last year, they discovered 138 cannabis plants growing in underground chambers.
The sophisticated system, designed to grow cannabis on a commercial basis, was using 61 transformers and 80 halogen bulbs.
Mark Watson, prosecuting, said “The value of the cannabis plants seized was £23,000. The potential from this enterprise was 21.6kg per year which, if sold, would amount to £75,600 a year.”
Elliott later told police that, at the time, his scaffolding business was in financial difficulties and he saw the chance to make some money.
He said he was approached by two people who set up the system, and he was expecting an income of £1,500 to £2,000 a week.
Elliott, 48, of Cherry Gates, Walcot Fen, near Billinghay, admitted unlawful production of cannabis.
Judge Sean Morris told him: “This was a professionally built, hidden subterranean factory that would have turned out £75,000 of skunk cannabis a year on to the streets, creating more crime and costing the country more money.
“You were clearly a manager and organiser. Professional, organised drug producers get proper sentences.”
Richard Marshall, defending, said: “He runs a small scaffolding company. At the end of 2009, things were very difficult. He was approached by another party, a man he had known from school.
“Mr Elliott was targeted because he owns a relatively remote house which happens to have a barn attached.
“He knew nothing about cannabis or cannabis growing. He played very little part in the operation other than visiting the plants two or three times a week.”
Mr Marshall said that, at the time of the police raid, the plants had yet to yield a harvest of cannabis.
He said: “Ironically his business has since turned the corner and things are looking a lot brighter than they were 18 months ago.”
Mr Marshall said both Elliott’s wife and son were employed by his business and would lose their jobs if he were jailed.
Via: www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk 
The incident occurred in the Mianshan Mountain area, a scenic spot near Jiexiu City at around 8:30 a.m. Thursday, when the scaffolding collapsed on a bus station under construction, killing six workers at the site, Jiexiu city government said in a statement.
Three other workers injured have been admitted to hospital, it said.
An investigation into the cause of the accident is underway.