A youth worker for Durham County Council who was accused of faking a back injury, has been awarded £33,000 in compensation in a union backed case. UNISON member Dean Gibbon received the payout after being injured putting away a deflated bouncy castle. The Judge at Newcastle Crown Court found his employer was in breach of the Manual Handling Regulations SI 1992/2793, and had failed to adopt a safe system for following their own instructions which stated that the job in question should never be done single-handed. This was supported by a risk assessment and evidence, including eye witnesses, that the bouncy castle was regularly put away by one person. Durham County Council unsuccessfully claimed that the accident either did not occur, or did not happen in the way that was described.
Michael Bray from the successful solicitors said that "employers can't expect to expose employees to unacceptable risks at work and then refuse to support them when injuries occur".
