Steelwork company fined £15,000 over dropped staircase

Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Company has been fined £15,000 and order to pay costs of £4,519, following a breach of health and safety when the firm dropped a staircase at Canary Wharf.

The Darlington-based company was found guilty of failing to lift sections of a 1.7t staircase by crane in such a way as to ensure the safety of persons not in their employment by providing safe lifting arrangements.

The accident, which occurred in March 2002, was caused by the failure of the attachments securing the staircase as it was being lifted into place by a crane. This resulted in a 7.5m-long steel staircase falling more than 70m to the ground, demolishing a boundary fence and bouncing off a heavily used site footpath before coming to rest near some workers on site at DS4 Canary Wharf, which is now 20 Canada Square.

Health & Safety Executive inspector Andy Beal said: "It's remarkable that no one was seriously injured or killed when this heavy staircase hit the ground. It was dropped because of shortcomings in Cleveland Bridge's design of the lifting equipment used, in the training of its staff and the monitoring of lifting operations on site. Any firm carrying out lifting operations must plan the work properly and communicate effectively with their workforce."