Contractor fined after lift fatality

The Kent-based contractor J.Brown Services has been fined £20,000 and ordered to pay £25,000 in costs after a fitter was crushed to death in a lift accident. The accident occurred in Mayfair in December 2005. J. Brown Services pleaded guilty to breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974.

The fitter, 40-year-old Andy Bates was a subcontractor working for J. Brown Services on a lift refurbishment project in a surveyors' firm in Mayfair. Mr. Bates was killed when the lift that he was working on unexpectedly moved upwards, crushing him against the top of the fourth floor landing door. The sudden movement of the lift was caused by damage to a cable.

Fellow workers heard a scream from the lift shaft and Mr. Bates was found trapped. Firefighters were called in and they managed to release the worker, but he failed to respond to treatment and was pronounced dead later that day.

An investigation into the incident found that Bates was operating the lift using a hand-held controller, however, at some point a cable from the controller had become caught on a bolt in the lift shaft. This resulted in the cable breaking and two of its wires were shorted leading to the unexpected upward movement of the lift.

Richard Tutt who was prosecuting told the court that Bates was probably attempting to escape from the top of the lift via the landing door when he was caught between the two. Mr. Tutt also said that Mr. Bates would have been unable to stop the lift's movement from his position on top of the car.

Mr. Bates was an experienced lift operative and the work he was carrying out was routine.

In his summing up Judge Richard Hone said that had there been an emergency stop button on the hand-held control the accident would probably not have occurred and that no financial penalty could ever compensate for the loss of a life.

Source - Ship Shape Resources

Posted Date: 01st Jul 2010