Scaffolding boss jailed for worker death failings
Scaffolding boss jailed for worker death failings
The Eltham-based owner of a Kent scaffolding business has been jailed for 15 months for safety failings after a worker plunged 14 metres to his death at a site in North West London.
The sentence, at Southwark Crown Court, will run concurrently with the unrelated life imprisonment imposed on Mark Anthony Hayes at the Old Bailey in July this year for the murder of his brother in a family feud.
The latest conviction is the third that Mark Hayes, 53, trading as WSS Scaffolding, has received for offences arising from the fatality of scaffolder Grant Dunmall at Linden Gardens in Notting Hill on 2 July 2012.
He was fined at two separate appearances at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in January and March last year for offences relating to the non-disclosure of essential documents to support a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation.
When it was eventually supplied, the missing paperwork enabled HSE to conclude its enquiries, and highlighted that Mr Hayes could and should have done more to prevent the fall.
Southwark Crown Court was told that Mr Hayes from Eltham, south east London, was responsible for a tower scaffold outside a domestic property. His employee, scaffolder Grant Dunmall, 25, from Hither Green, was working on the structure when he fell, sustaining fatal injuries.
After a three-day trial at Southwark Crown Court, Mr Hayes was found guilty of a breach of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 for failing to properly plan, supervise and carry out the work at height in a safe manner at the Notting Hill site.
HSE established that edge protection was missing from the scaffold, and that Mr Dunmall wasn’t provided with any other means such as a fall arrest harness, to prevent or mitigate a fall.
Mr Hayes, of Eltham Green Road, Greenwich, south east London was found guilty after defending the case and sent to prison for 15 months for breaching the Work at Height Regulations 2005.
Last year, combined fines of £12,000 and costs of £5,601 were imposed on Mr Hayes after he admitted breaches of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and the Employers’ Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969.
The breaches addressed Mr Hayes’ failure to provide legally-required documents relating to his management of work at height after he had earlier ignored a ‘Notice to produce’ served by HSE.