Discovery Homes (Scotland) and director fined after death fall

A Scottish housebuilder has been fined £5,000, while one of its directors was fined £4,000, after a Polish worker employed by the firm fell to his death on site.

Polish worker Andrezej Freitag, 53, fell three metres down an exhaust shaft at a block of flats being built on Arbroath Road, Dundee on 29 May 2008.

He died later in Ninewells hospital.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that there was no robust barrier on the edge of the shaft.

Discovery Homes (Scotland) was fined £5,000 at Dundee Sheriff Court today, after pleading guilty to a breach of Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Meanwhile Richard Lionel John Pratt, a director of the firm who performed the duties of site manager, was fined £4,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Section 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

The fine marks only the second successful prosecution of a company director in Scotland for six years for a breach of health and safety legislation.

HSE inspector Murray Provan said: "This accident was entirely forseeable and preventable. Mr Freitag died because his employer and the site manager failed to do enough about the risks associated with working at height."

"Mr Pratt used the type of barrier normally found at a roadworks site as protection at the top of the shaft, which is totally unsuitable for that purpose."