Lawford Kidd's Blog

The director of a Bromley firm has given a suspended jail sentence after removing asbestos without a licence and deceiving the householders by providing a doctored air test saying the room was safe to re-enter.

Southwark Crown Court was told that the firm was hired to take out all the asbestos insulation from the boiler room of a home in Camden. The director did the work over eleven days but as well as being unlicensed to remove asbestos, he failed to effectively clean and decontaminate the area. He left visible fibres that were a danger to the householders and to the plumbers, who were due to start work in the boiler room.

After he was finished, an analyst who went to take an air test provided him with a certificate clearly showing the site had failed. However, the director provided a doctored report to the owners indicating it had passed the test and was safe for them to re-enter, which they did.

Shops, offices, pubs and clubs will no longer face health and safety inspections, and over 3,000 regulations will be scrapped or overhauled in a radical plan by the Government to curb red tape and boost British business growth.

From April 2013, the Government intends to introduce binding new rules on both the Health & Safety Executive and on local authorities, that will exempt hundreds of thousands of businesses from regular health & safety inspections.

In future, businesses will only face health and safety inspections if they are operating in higher risk areas such as construction, or if they have an incident or a track record of poor performance.

On Saturday 28th April, unions and safety campaigners around the world will be marking Workers' Memorial Day and remembering the two million men and women who die every year as a result of work-related accidents and diseases.

In the UK over 20,000 people die prematurely every year as a result of injuries or accidents caused by their work. As well as remembering the dead, the day also serves as a reminder that workplace-related deaths are not inevitable and can be prevented.

This year the TUC is calling on unions and safety campaigners to make 28th April a day of action to defend health and safety from attacks by the press, politicians and employers.

The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) has announced that it has begun criminal proceedings against Network Rail for a breach of health and safety law which caused a train to derail near Grayrigg in 2007.

On 23rd February 2007, the 17.15 Virgin Trains service from London Euston to Glasgow Central derailed on the West Coast Mainline near Grayrigg in Cumbria. There were 109 people on board. One passenger, Mrs Margaret Masson, was killed and a further 86 people were injured, 28 seriously.

Ian Prosser, Director of Railway Safety at ORR, said:

“ORR has conducted a thorough investigation into whether criminal proceedings should be brought in relation to the train derailment near Grayrigg on 23rd February 2007, which caused the death of Mrs Masson and injured 86 people. Following the coroner’s inquest into the death of Mrs Masson, I have concluded that there is enough evidence, and that it is in the public interest, to bring criminal proceedings against Network Rail for a serious breach of health and safety law which led to the train derailment.

“The railway today is as safe as it has ever been but there can be no room for complacency. The entire rail industry must continue to strive for improvements to ensure that public safety is never put at risk.” 

Network Rail is facing a charge under section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. This results from the company’s failure to provide and implement suitable and sufficient standards, procedures, guidance, training, tools and resources for the inspection and maintenance of fixed stretcher-bar points.