Court bill of £24k for firm over Wolverhampton ladder fall

Norris Contracting Ltd had been hired to re-decorate the outside of a residential care home, Soroptimist House, on Tettenhall Road when the ladder supporting one of its workers slipped.

Wolverhampton Magistrates' Court heard the company had said before it took on the job scaffolding would be needed.

Despite this and the wet ground conditions the workers relied on a ladder.

The court heard that one of the workers, Karl Palmer, worked at a height of 26ft from the ground and injured himself when he fell to the floor after the ladder supporting him slipped.

Not only was the ladder not supported by a colleague, but the Nottingham-based company continued to rely on ladders after the accident until the job was completed, the court heard.

Wolverhampton City Council solicitor Jacky Bramley said the company had various health and safety plans but a supervisor had not used scaffolding on November 11, 2011, because he 'said it wasn't necessary'.

She added: "Working at height is the biggest cause of working fatalities. It's not enough to write documents, they have to be put in place."

The court heard the company had not breached health and safety rules before but, yesterday, managing director John Norris entered guilty pleas to three charges of failing to plan and carry out work safely, failure to take suitable measures to prevent a person falling to a distance liable to cause personal injury and failing to select the correct equipment for use at height.

In the company's defence, Mr Millbank said Mr Norris was 'genuinely alarmed the work was completed using ladders again'.

"It didn't occur to him until after the incident that the job could be completed in any way other than as planned," he said.

"You might think that the use of ladders gives some cost saving but it doesn't. It's about £13 a day to hire the scaffolding. It's more expensive to have a man standing and footing the ladder while a second man does the work."

Judge Michael Wheeler said: "Norris Contracting has the appropriate risk management policies and a site survey done referred to work being undertaken with hydraulic platforms and scaffolding use to secure site safety but as a result of decisions made on the day and in the office there was a fundamental failure by your company to secure (Mr Palmer's) safety."

He fined the company £8,000 for each of the three offences and ordered them to pay £1,868.50 in prosecution costs.