Window firm gets maximum penalty for employee fall

A Birmingham window firm has been fined £5,000 after sending an employee with no extra protection to finish a job that seriously injured another worker.

Eastern Windows Manufacturing of Handsworth was slapped with the maximum fine after pleading guilty to a breach of the Work at Height Regulations.

The charge related to an incident in which an employee fell 2.5m through a roof while fitting new doors, windows and a roof to a home in Coventry.

The man fractured his skull and vertebrae, is now deaf in one ear and has difficulty walking.

Health and Safety Executive inspector Stephen Farthing said the company sent a second worker to finish the job without any extra protection from falling.

He said: “Falls from height remain one of the biggest killers of employees and last year, across the country, in the construction industry alone there were 23 workers killed, and 3,409 seriously injured after falling from height.”

The Coventry Magistrate’s Court heard that sufficient measures had not been taken to support or protect anyone from falling through the roof.

The company was fined £5,000 and ordered to pay £1,480 in costs.