Leicestershire housebuilder fined £20,000 after eight-year-old injured

Housebuilder BDW Trading Ltd has been fined £20,000 after a stack of timber roof trusses fell on an eight year-old boy.

The boy was playing with friends on 28 April 2009, and got into an unsecured storage area on a site at Linwood, near Paisley.

The development was partly completed, and the boy’s family had moved into one of the finished houses while work continued on the other homes.

While the children were playing in the storage area, a pile of timber roof trusses fell on top of the boy, trapping him underneath.

He suffered a serious injury to his liver and abdominal bleeding, but was rescued by two neighbours who managed to heave the roof trusses off him.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive found that the site was only partially fenced and could easily be accessed by the public.

Meanwhile, the roof trusses had been stacked upright, making them more likely to fall over.

Paisley Sheriff’s Court heard that when an HSE Inspector visited the site, BDW Trading were not aware that there had been an incident and that a young child had been injured.

After the hearing, HSE Inspector Gerry McCulloch said: “BDW Trading Ltd knew that families were living right next to of the construction site, and as such the safety of children should have been a primary consideration.

“If the company had taken the straightforward precaution of fencing off the construction site, the children would not have been able to get into the area and this young lad would not have received potentially life-threatening injuries.”

BDW Trading, of Barratt House, Cartwright Way, Forest Business Park, Bardon Hill, Coalville, Leicestershire, was fined £20,000 after pleadeding guilty to safety breaches.