Leicester Square contractor heavily fined after serious burn injuries to worker

Redmans Solicitors
September 25, 2013

A Dublin-based construction company has been heavily fined after one of its workers sustained serious injuries in an accident at work.

SIAC Construction Limited was the principal contractor on the major project to renovate Leicester Square when the accident occurred in April 2012. Mr Trevor Maloney, 32, was working for the company on repairs to the renovations, digging into Leicester Square, when he hit a live electricity cable. There was an explosion and Mr Maloney suffered burns to his hands and his face and had to be hospitalized for four days. He has apparently since made a full recovery.

The Health and Safety Executive was notified of the accident and undertook an investigation into the circumstances of the injury. This investigation found that the firm had failed to put in place adequate safeguards to prevent the cables being hit – the cable was partly above its concrete foundations and concealed within mortar, unprotected by any steel plating. The firm had also failed to adequately notify the workers of where the electricity cable was located. A prosecution of SIAC Construction Limited was therefore recommended by the Health and Safety Executive.

The court case at Westminster Magistrates’ Court took place on 23 September 2013. The firm pleaded guilty to a single breach of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 and was fined £20,000 as well as being ordered to pay £5,002 towards the cost of the prosecution.

HSE Inspector Loraine Charles stated after the judgment: “It is essential that when any work that might disturb live underground services is being carried out, all practicable steps are taken to determine the location of those services, and to arrange the work so that the risk of damaging any service is minimised.”

Chris Hadrill, an employment solicitor at Redmans Solicitors, commented: “Firms have a duty to take reasonably practicable steps to prevent injury to their workers and the court found in this instance that the firm had failed to do this. It therefore fined the company and ordered it to pay the prosecution’s costs.”

SIAC Construction Limited’s criminal defence solicitors appear not to have commented after the judgment – a fact which is not of itself unusual.

Redmans Solicitors are specialist unfair dismissal solicitors and can help injured employees claim personal injury