Ashley Grealish remains paralysed below the waist after falling 11 metres down a stairwell when the concrete floor he was working on collapsed.
Peterborough Magistrates’ Court heard that on 14th June 2016, workers were constructing a new hospitality and seating stand at Watford Football Club’s Vicarage Road stadium.
The concrete floor and associated formwork collapsed, causing a number of workers to fall. Most of the workers were able to cling to the structure and escape serious injury. However, Ashley Grealish fell approximately 11 metres down the mouth of a stairwell to the basement below. He sustained multiple injuries including spinal damage, which caused permanent paralysis from the waist down.
An investigation by Health & Safety Executive (HSE) found that ECS Groundwork’s temporary works management system was lacking. The contractor should have had a suitable design for the temporary works taking proper account of the vertical load and the need for horizontal stability. ECS should also have had a system to check that the temporary works were properly installed and assessed before starting to load it with the wet concrete to form the floor slab.
ECS Groundwork Ltd of Warren Farm, Colney Heath, St Albans pleaded guilty to breaching Regulations 19 (1), 19(2) and 19(3) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015. It was fined £40,000 and ordered to pay costs of £14,505.
HSE inspector Rauf Ahmed said after the hearing: “The injuries suffered by Mr Grealish are life changing and the incident could easily have been fatal. This serious incident and devastation could have been avoided if the company had planned a safe system of work to prevent the support system used to cast the concrete floor from collapsing.”
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