An architect’s practice and a construction company have been fined a total of £195,000 following the death of a sub-contractor who fell 9m on a Somerset development.

Express Park Construction Company (EPCC) of London admitted failing to manage subcontractors working for it safely. They were fined £75,000 and ordered to pay costs of £68,000.

The architects, Oxford Architects Partnership, admitted breaching the Construction (Design & Management) Regulations. They were fined £120,000 and ordered to pay costs of £60,000.

Gwyndaf Davies, a 21-year-old from Carmarthen, has been left with the lasting effects of a traumatic brain injury, is blind in one eye and partially sighted in the other, has limited speech and cannot walk without aid following a 3m fall from a roof he was working on in Wales.

He spent nine months as an in-patient at Morriston hospital following the fall undergoing significant facial reconstruction and eye surgery.

His employers, Delme L James Ltd, of Cynwyl Elfed, Carmarthenshire, have been fined £8,000 and ordered to pay costs of £2,189.40 for breaching Regulation 4 of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.

Lewis Edwards played for West Ham juniors, but at 17 his first job resulted in multiple fractures to his pelvis, a number of vertebrae, his collar bone, upper left arm, elbow and left wrist after he fell through a roof light on a roof he had been sent on to to clean out the guttering. His spleen was also ruptured in the fall and had to be removed in emergency surgery. More than a year later he is still receiving medical treatment for his injuries.

The company he was working for, STP Solutions of Croydon, have been fined £28,500 and ordered to pay costs of £9,359.

The Health & Safety Executive say falls from height are the biggest single cause of workplace deaths in Britain and caused nearly 11,500 serious injuries last year. More information on working safely at height is available from their website.

www.hse.gov.uk/falls