Building Site Manager Convicted

    A building site manager has been convicted after his disregard of safety resulted in the death of a Leicester man.

    During the afternoon of Saturday 24 January last year Tasadaq Ur-Rehman, 40, was working on a site in St Saviours Hill, Leicester, when he fell through a skylight aperture in a first floor roof and sustained serious head injuries.

    He was taken to the Leicester Royal Infirmary but later transferred to the Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham where he subsequently died on Wednesday 28 January.

    Following Tasadaq’s death a joint investigation between Leicestershire Police and the Health and Safety Executive was launched.

    Faruk Patel, 40, of Upperton Road, Leicester was today (Friday 15 July) found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence after a trial at Birmingham Crown Court.

    Patel also pleaded guilty in December 2015 to three health and safety offences. He was sentenced to 2 ½ years in prison for manslaughter by gross negligence and eight months in prison for the health and safety offences, to run concurrently.

    The court heard that Patel was the manager on the building site and had asked Tasadaq to fit windows on the first floor.

    Enquiries on site revealed that there was no scaffolding provided in the area where the windows were to be fitted and there was no safe method of transferring the windows to the first floor, where access was only by way of a broken, untethered ladder.

    A number of safety issues were identified during the investigation and Patel failed to provide adequate measures to protect those working on the site.

    Detective Inspector Alex Hathaway was the senior investigating officer on the enquiry. He said: “This was a tragic incident which could have been avoided had Patel taken his role to protect his workforce on the building site seriously.”

    Detective Constable Beverley Toon led the investigation, she said: “The investigation revealed that scaffolding outside the building was constructed haphazardly. It was not fitted with appropriate walkways but just a few unsecure planks of wood. Nobody on site was wearing any personal protective equipment, there were no warning signs anywhere and no qualified first aider on site.

    “This was a serious dereliction of Patel’s duty, one that made him responsible for protecting people on site. His negligence and total disregard of health and safety directly contributed to the unnecessary death of a worker.

    “Tasadaq’s wife and two young children now face the rest of their lives without their loved one. We hope this conviction helps the family to come to terms with what happened.”

    Detective Inspector Hathaway added: “We also hope this case acts as a deterrent to others in the building trade and ensures they think about the health and safety of their workers at all times.”

    Health and Safety Executive inspector Sarah Hill said: “We identified several areas around the St Saviours Hill site where falls could occur, and where workers were at risk of being seriously injured or killed as a result. No health and safety precautions had been taken in relation to health and safety on this site. Faruk Patel continued to put workers lives at risk even after a fatal accident on the site.

    “The difference between where Faruk Patel was in relation to his legal obligations and where he should have been created extreme risk. He fell far short of what the law required and put lives at risk.”

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