News

Two partners of a building firm have been fined £10,000 each at Folkestone Magistrates Court following an incident that left a teenage bricklayer on work experience with a fractured skull and a brain haemorrhage.

Dover-based Peter Swinbourne and Nicholas Rawlins, who traded jointly as Dover Building and Property Maintenance, were prosecuted under Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act after the incident which took place at Folkestone Road, Dover in October 2006.

Martin Sankey, 16, was working for the company to gain experience while on a college bricklaying course.

The incident happened on the second day when he was asked to clear some materials from the second floor of the development, on the site of the former Webbs Hotel, but he blacked out, falling 5.9m through the hole of a lift well that was under construction. 

He landed on the ground floor, incurring a fractured skull, a brain haemorrhage, facial and leg injuries, and extensive bruising.

HM inspector of health and safety John Underwood commented: "This accident was totally preventable in that a very basic timber or scaffold edge protection barrier would have prevented anyone working near the lift well or moving past it from falling."

Swinbourne and Rawlins were also ordered to pay £1,290 each.