Director fined after subbie injured in fall

The director of a building firm has been fined after a subcontracted plasterer was badly injured when he fell 4m through a temporary timber handrail on the first floor of a barn in April 2007.

John Holdom of J R Holdom Contractors was fined £2,000 and ordered to pay £1,614 costs today after pleading guilty to breaches of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 during the conversion work to Rotheram Oak Farm Barn at Hockley Heath in Solihull.

The plasterer broke both his wrists and bruised his left side during the incident and had to spend four days in hospital.

HSE prosecuting inspector Karl Raw said: "Sufficient measures had not been taken to support or protect anyone from falling from the landing area and the wooden handrail was not sufficiently secured.

"There is an expectation that someone falling from that height onto a concrete floor might not survive. Such falls remain one of the biggest killers at work and last year, across the country, in the construction industry alone, there were 10 employees killed, 13 self-employed killed and 3,409 seriously injured, after falling from height."