On 5 April 2016, at around 7:15 am, a junior employee of John Paul Horgan's joinery business (Unit 6) was involved in an accident which resulted in many minor fractures to his arm. The circumstances following the fall are unknown, but it is known that it occurred when he and another worker went to install an insulation, whilst working on an outbuilding in the defendants home in St Peter.
The 18-year-old apprentice was described as being "relatively immature and lacked work experience generally" and that this had not been taken into account by Horgan; even recently he had suffered an injury to his hand, and was just returning back to work following recuperation from this incident. On top of this, he had not taken the necessary steps to keep his employees safe, for example including a tower scaffold or a protective barrier in the stairwell. Because of the company's failure to provide adequate training and take into account the apprentices lack of training, the young man suffered an injury.
As a result of his mistakes, Horgan was fined £15,000 and forced to pay £2,500 towards costs for the victim. Advocate, Adam Harrison, defending Horgan has said he felt this was too severe a punishment and that he thought it was "not as serious as the Crown suggests."
