Prosecutors for the Health and Safety Executive brought a work accident claim against a scaffolding company’s former boss after two employees were injured in a scaffold collapse, accident claim experts recently said.
Robert Leslie Butler, former director of RB & Son Scaffolding Limited, had employed both of the men that were injured in the accident. The two unnamed workers had been attempting to dismantle a scaffolding tower that had been erected in Nottingham, at Radford Boulevard, when it collapsed suddenly atop them, according to their personal injury claims.
One of the employees, a twenty six year old man, took a leap from six metres up to avoid the falling scaffolding. However, upon landing on the ground, he suffered fractures to his left ankle and his right heel.
The second man injured in the collapse, a forty six year old worker, had been even further up the scaffolding tower at around ten metres above the ground. The man escaped relatively unscathed as he clung to the collapsing tower, whose fall was arrested by a nearby building, experts say.
The HSE subsequently investigated the incident, discovering that the tower had not been secured to the building anywhere but at the top. In addition to the lack of ties to the building at more than one location, the scaffolding was also found to have been inadequately erected, as it failed to meet acceptable industry standards as well.
Mr Butler, a forty six year old native of Top Valley, Nottingham, was given a £3,000 fine after he entered a guilty plea of breaching Health and Safety regulations. The former company director was also told to pay £2,000 in additional legal costs as well.