Welsh firms fined £54,900 for Speke Aiport fatality

Primary Design and Build and Gareth Pugh Steel Framed Buildings have been fined a total of £54,900 costs at Liverpool Crown Court for the death of Ian Cavender at Speke Airport in August 2000.

Cavender was killed when a hangar door he was fitting fell on him during its erection.

Primary Design was fined £9,900 after pleading guilty to a charge under Section 3(1) of the Health and safety at Work Act 1974. The fine would have been £15,000, but Judge Gilmour had to take into account the company's inability to pay - it went into liquidation shortly after the accident as its insurance premiums increased significantly.

Powys-based Gareth Pugh was fined £45,000 and ordered to pay costs of £23,165 after pleading guilty to Section 2(1). Pugh has also suffered a "huge increase" in insurance premiums.

In April the Health & Safety Executive's case against Andrew Allan, the self-employed consulting engineer who designed the hangar door, collapsed when a planning supervisor with Primary Design stated that he found Allan's design to be perfectly satisfactory, providing all the information he needed and expected to safely erect the hangar.