Lamps and Tubes Illuminations Ltd has been fined £5,950 and was ordered to pay £10,000 in costs after admitting to breaching the Work at Height Regulations SI 2005/735. The particular breach relates to an incident in 2011 when an employee broke his arm and lost several teeth following a fall from a ladder.
Ryszard Zolyniak was fixing bunting outside a supermarket as part of the celebrations for the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge when he slipped and fell from the ladder. Following the five metre fall, Mr Zolyniak suffered five broken bones in his wrist, lost teeth and trapped a nerve in his leg.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that a director from Lamps and Tubes Illuminations Ltd had attended the site and advised Mr. Zolyniak and a co-worker to use a ladder despite the fact that other employees nearby were using cherry pickers. The use of a ladder was unnecessary when a safer way of working was available - a point the company makes clear in its own written procedures.
Followng the hearing, HSE Inspector Stephen Faulkner said, "Falls from height pose a frequent risk for Lamps and Illuminations Ltd employees due to the nature of the company’s work. So the bunting project should have been better managed. The company had in place a written set of procedures, which included not using ladders if another more suitable method of working at height was available. However, these were seemingly overlooked on the day of the incident, resulting in painful injuries for Mr Zolyniak that could have been avoided."
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