Council fined after Christmas tree worker's fall
A council workman tasked with erecting a Christmas tree in a town's market was badly hurt when the platform he was using toppled over with him inside, a court has heard.
James Lyth, 32, was using a scissor lift to straighten the 20ft (6m) high tree in Bury, Greater Manchester, on 21 November 2022.
Bury Metropolitan Borough Council, which admitted breaching health and safety laws, was fined £200,000 at Manchester Magistrates' Court on Wednesday.
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector Leanne Ratcliffe said: "It is important for industry to understand the importance of a risk assessment and training when using elevated platforms."
The court heard the tree was being installed by a council subcontractor at Bury Market in time for the town's annual festivities.
Mr Lyth suffered concussion and severe injuries to the right-hand side of his body, including bruised ribs, when the platform fell.
He needed an operation on his leg and was left using a wheelchair and crutches after also sustaining a large cut to his leg.
The accident kept Mr Lyth off work for two months and he was subsequently only initially able to return on restricted hours and duties.
The subsequent HSE investigation found the council had failed to provide Mr Lyth with any training in the safe operation of the scissor lift.
It also failed to carry out a sufficient risk assessment.
The HSE said such preparatory work would have identified the dangers involved, as well as the need to ensure appropriate training.
The council admitted breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
Ms Ratcliffe said: "This was a very serious incident.
"Access to these platforms should be limited to those trained and anyone who isn't trained shouldn't be allowed to use them.
"If this sort of work is not planned and controlled to a high degree, then there is a very high likelihood of a potentially fatal fall, or one resulting in very serious injury."
Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on BBC Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram, and watch BBC North West Tonight on BBC iPlayer
https://www.bury.gov.uk/
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Minneapolis man sentenced for stabbing, hanging St. Paul woman's dog after argument
A Minneapolis man with a significant recent criminal history was sentenced this week to four years in prison for killing a woman's dog inside her St. Paul apartment after the two argued. The sentence handed down to 25-year-old Emmanuel Joe Ware Jr. in Ramsey County District Court on Monday will run at the same time as a four-year term he received in Hennepin County in March for possession of a firearm and ammunition by a person who is not eligible due to a conviction for a crime of violence. The Ramsey County complaint says the woman told police that she left her West Side apartment on Jan. 9 to stay with her sister after she and Ware got into an argument. When she returned the next day, her bloodied and dead dog — a white Pomeranian named 'Bug' — was hanging by his neck in her closet. Officers saw a shattered mirror, blood 'all over' the walls and the dog hanging. He had a deep cut to his eye. A knife block in the kitchen was missing two knives. A necropsy later revealed Bug had broken bones and stab wounds to his head. The woman told police Ware sent her a series of threatening text messages after she went to her sister's place. She said she is pregnant with Ware's child and fearful of him because he was assaultive with her in the past, the complaint says. Investigators spoke with Ware four days later at Hennepin County Jail, where he was booked Jan. 12 on the gun possession charge. Ware said he 'loves Bug' and would never hurt him, and that he was with his girlfriend, 'Fantasia,' in Minneapolis on the day in question, the complaint says. Investigators pulled video surveillance footage from the apartment building, which showed Ware in the first-floor elevator lobby around 5 p.m. Jan. 9, and in the fourth-floor lobby around 7:45 p.m. Investigators, with apartment surveillance photos in hand, returned to the jail on Jan. 27 to interview Ware again. He said that he had lied to them before and was at the apartment on Jan. 9, but reiterated he did not kill the dog. Ware pleaded guilty to felony mistreating or torturing an animal on March 20 after reaching an agreement with the prosecution. Ex-Metro Transit employee claims religious discrimination in lawsuit Verdict awaits after closing arguments in Derrick Thompson's trial for crash that killed 5 Ex-teacher of Hmong College Prep Academy in St. Paul sentenced for criminal sexual conduct with student 'Felt as though they were going to kill me,' Mahtomedi man beaten and robbed of casino winnings says in court Macalester alum sues over animal testing in psychology labs; college responds Another case was dismissed at sentencing as part of the plea deal: felony mail theft after police say video surveillance at the woman's St. Paul apartment building showed him stealing a package of Christmas gifts from the mail room on Dec. 4. Ware has one pending case. In December, he was charged with misdemeanor domestic assault stemming from a Dec. 11 incident involving the woman at the HealthPartners Clinic on Wabasha Street in St. Paul during an OB/GYN appointment. A jury trial is scheduled for next month. At the time of the dog's killing, Ware was on intensive supervised release after serving three years and three months for a 2021 conviction in Hennepin County for abetting and abetting first-degree robbery. He has two other felony convictions out of Hennepin County: first-degree robbery in 2017 and fourth-degree possession of a controlled substance (cocaine and ecstasy) in 2019.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Couple take legal action over newborn baby's death
A couple are taking legal action against a health board after their daughter died just hours after she was born. Liliwen Iris Thomas died due to complications during labour on 10 October 2022, 20 hours after she was born at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. Emily Brazier and Rhodri Thomas, from Cardiff, claim Ms Brazier was left alone to give birth despite the pregnancy being classed as high-risk and said they were living "every parent's worst nightmare". Cardiff and Vale health board shared its condolences and said it was fully engaged with the inquest process but added that "it would be inappropriate to comment further until the inquest concludes". "I have very hazy memories of my labour but then I vividly remember peeling back the covers and seeing Liliwen there, completely still and lifeless," said Ms Brazier. "That image will be with me forever. I still have flashbacks and nightmares and have been in counselling since it happened." Crime by staff tolerated at hospital, report says Top GP warns NI rise will make waiting times worse Treatment in corridors becoming the norm - nurses Mr Thomas said he was not present when Ms Brazier went into labour due to the maternity unit not allowing partners on the ward overnight unless their partner was in active labour. "I should have been there, I could have been Emily's advocate," he said. "I would have pressed the call bell and alerted midwives that she was clearly in active labour and needed extra monitoring and help." Shortly before midnight on 9 October, Ms Brazier said she was given pain relief and left with gas and air before stirring from her drowsiness after 02:00 to discover her daughter had been born. "It was absolute panic from that point, they took Liliwen away and rushed me up to the delivery suite, I had lost a lot of blood and needed stitches, IV fluids and a blood transfusion," she said. Liliwen was treated in the neonatal intensive care unit but died later that day. Since her death Ms Brazier, who at the time was studying to be a nurse, has opted against a career in the profession and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The couple are also parents to daughter Carys and son Ellis but Ms Brazier said "so many happy memories and special family moments are tinged with sadness". "I dread family events and Christmas as Liliwen will never be there, she will always be the missing piece. I will never get over her death, I feel stuck in time," she said. "Holding your child as they take their last breath, leaving them behind after their last ever cuddle, walking out of the hospital with an empty car seat, there are so many painful memories seared into my brain. The health board said: "Our sincere thoughts and heartfelt condolences remain with Liliwen's family during this incredibly difficult time."
New York Post
5 days ago
- New York Post
Barbaric dad who set sleeping daughter, 2, on fire in desert dies behind bars 26 years after ‘heinous, cruel and depraved' slaying
An Arizona dad who told his 2-year-old daughter they were going to see Christmas lights but instead took her into the desert and lit the tot on fire has died in prison 26 years after the barbaric killing. The body of convicted murderer Shawn Ryan Grell, 50, was discovered by officials in the Arizona Prison Complex Tucson on April 19, but they did not disclose any details about his death. 4 The body of convicted murderer Shawn Ryan Grell, 50, was discovered in the Arizona Prison Complex Tucson on April 19, but they did not disclose any details about his death. Arizona Department of Corrections 'All inmate deaths are investigated in consultation with the county medical examiner's office,' the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry said in a statement to The Post Wednesday. The Prima County Medical Examiner's Office could not be reached for comment. Grell case was described by Arizona's highest court as 'horrific,' according to Grell picked up his young daughter, Kristen Salem, from a Mesa day care on Dec. 2, 1999, and took her to McDonald's, the outlet reported. He said they were going to see Christmas lights, reported in 2009, but instead drove to Target to buy a plastic gas can and gasoline, according to court documents. He drove to a deserted area in the desert outside Mesa, laid his sleeping daughter on the ground, doused her in gasoline and lit her on fire, the records said. 4 Kristen Salem, 2, was set on fire by her father, Shawn Ryan Grell, who died in prison in April. Little Kristen awoke, stumbled 10 feet while engulfed in flames, before collapsing on the ground. After killing his daughter, Grell went to buy beer at a nearby convenience store. He told the clerk that he had seen some teenagers setting a dog on fire in a vacant lot. He drove around for hours before calling the cops and turning himself in. He would later confess to the killing at a press conference early the next morning. 'I took the gasoline and I poured it on her,' he told investigators during a videotaped interview. 'I took the match and threw it on her,' he added with no trace of emotion in his voice. 4 Shawn Ryan Grell confessed to fatally setting his 2-year-old daughter on fire in an Arizona desert in 1999. 4 Little Kristen awoke, stumbled 10 feet while engulfed in flames, before collapsing on the ground. The court ruled that the senseless killing was committed in an 'especially heinous, cruel, and depraved manner' and Grell was charged with first-degree murder and sentenced to death. But that was overturned via a unanimous ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court in 2013, which found his death sentence was 'cruel and unusual punishment.' Grell was one of 144 death sentences around the country affected by a Supreme Court decision in 2002 that ruled it was a violation of the Eighth Amendment to administer the death penalty to people with 'mental deficiencies.' 'Because of their disabilities in areas of reasoning, judgment, and control of their impulses, however, they do not act with the level of moral culpability that characterizes the most serious adult criminal conduct,' the Supreme Court ruled in Atkins v. Virginia. Grell's lawyers successfully argued, citing the killer's low IQ scores and other medical tests, that their client met the criteria laid out by the Supreme Court in their 6-3 decision.
