In February 2021 Dennis Vincent, aged 36, died following a fall from the roof of an office block being converted into flats.
He and another worker were using ropes to install a lightning protection system to the front of Palmyra House in Warrington. He was lowering the access equipment from the roof, using a rope attached to a frame at roof level and a handrail at ground level. As he did so, both he and the frame fell from the roof to the ground.
In February this year his employer PTSG Electrical Services Limited was fined £120,000 and ordered to pay £5448.51 in costs by Wirral magistrates for failing to adequately assess the risks associated with this work, giving little consideration to the work at height hierarchy of control and opting for personal protection measures over more suitable protection measures, such as scaffolding or a mobile elevating work platform (MEWP).
Two more firms have now been fined for their role in the fatality after a three-week hearing at Liverpool Crown Court.
Inco Contracts Limited and Prestige Security Installations Limited were fined on Thursday after a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation. Inco Contracts of Dunston Business Village in Staffordshire was fined £600,000 and ordered to pay £58,448 in costs at Liverpool Crown Court on 30th November 2023.
Prestige Security Installations Limited of Great Sankey, Warrington, was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay £15,000 in costs.
The HSE investigation found that Inco Contracts, the principal contractor for the project, and Prestige Security Installations, the contractor in control of the electrical installation package, had also failed to ensure that the work was properly planned.
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