Firms fined £1m after apartment site tragedy
Three companies were fined more than £1m after a worker died and two others were seriously injured when a temporary platform collapsed at an apartment construction site.
Southwark Crown Court heard that in October 2012, a carpenter and a steel-fixer were standing on a temporary wooden platform above a stairwell opening on the 9th floor of the site in Putney when it suddenly gave way.
Carpenter Justinas Kopickas was killed and Terry Cooper sustained serious injuries. A third worker was struck and seriously injured by falling debris.
St James Group, the principal contractor, was fined £600,000 and ordered to pay costs of almost £15,000. Mitchellson Formwork and Civil Engineering Ltd, was fined £400,000 and ordered to pay costs of almost £15,000.
RGF Construction Ltd, a site agent who assisted with managing the work, was fined £20,000 at an earlier hearing.
A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation discovered similar platforms had been constructed on other floors throughout the construction site, by using timber joists supported by unsuitable joist hangers with plywood fixed on top.
The platforms were neither built to an agreed safe design, nor was the quality of the build checked by those in control of the site.
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