Rokbuild fined £175k after labourer is paralysed

Rok subsidiary Rokbuild has been fined £175,000 for its role in a dumper accident that left a subcontractor worker paraplegic.

The subbie, Robert Blackmore, trading as RB Contractors of Uplands Road, Winchester, Hampshire, was fined £5,000.

Both companies were prosecuted by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) following its investigation into the incident, in which labourer Christopher Feeley was severely injured in March 2004 while working on a Rokbuild site at Sir John Moore Barracks in Winchester.

Feeley, who was working for RB Contractors, was driving a dumper on the site when the front wheels slipped into a trench. Another worker tried to use a mini excavator to pull the dumper out, but the bucket slipped and hit Feeley in the back. The impact left him a paraplegic.

It later emerged that none of RB Contractors' employees had training in the use of plant and Feeley did not have a driving licence.

The HSE said: "Rokbuild's 'hands off' approach at this project meant that they appointed an inexperienced and untrained contracts manager and site manager."