Hughes Brothers Building & Joinery Ltd in Leigh, Manchester, have been fined £8,000 and ordered to pay £3,517 costs after one of their workers suffered multiple injuries, including fractures to his leg, collar bone and arm, and injuries to the vertebrae in his upper and lower back, when a wall collapsed on him in Wigan.

HSE Inspector Tom Merry said that “…shockingly, only one of the workers had previous experience of demolition work but he did not stay on the site the whole time. The others had neither the experience nor qualifications needed to demolish buildings.”

Northamptonshire businessman Paul Richard Llewellyn James has been fined £60,000 with £17,500 costs after an employee suffered severe arm injuries as a result of cleaning a moving conveyor belt just 14 months after another employee had lost his arm in a similar accident.

The accidents happened because guards had been removed from the conveyor belts.

The company was put into voluntary liquidation three days after the case was committed to the Crown Court but HSE prosecuted Paul James personally.

Neil Craig, HSE Principal Inspector, said: “As Managing Director, Paul James was instrumental in both of these incidents. For this reason HSE took the decision to prosecute him as an individual rather than proceed against his company.”

Construction workers in central Scotland were invited in November to the first of a series of events across Scotland to raise awareness of silicosis, the potentially lethal lung disease that results from breathing in stone dust.

The Health & Safety Executive teamed up with the Working Well Together campaign and builders merchants Beatsons Building Supplies for the event at Beatsons’ premises in Alloa.

The workers were shown examples of the correct respiratory equipment to use. They were also shown a film of the risks and how to control them, and given leaflets and information packs.