Brighton builder sentenced after negligence left girl fighting for life.
A builder received a six month suspended sentence after a court heard his negligence left a three-year-old girl fighting for her life. The builder was working on scaffolding in Brighton last summer when a plank of wood he was winching fell onto a pushchair.
He was working in Brighton, on the scaffolding of a high street shop on a busy high street when a plank of wood he was winching fell onto a pushchair that the young girl was in. He has apologised exclaiming he is “Deeply sorry”. He'll also complete 220 hours of unpaid work.
The girl's parents were first told she was unlikely to survive. She is now struggling with life-changing injuries. Brighton Magistrates Court heard that at first the girl was not expected to survive and she had to have emergency brain surgery. '"Her head had swollen to twice its normal size", her father said. "The shrieking noise she made will haunt me for the rest of my life."
The builder worked as a decorator and had no formal safety training for the winch!
Make sure that you gain the correct formal safety training for anything and everything you do within your trade, not only for the safety of others but for the safety of yourself. There’s nothing worse than using a piece of equipment you are not experienced in and understand completely. Faulty knowledge can lead to regrettable situations. The girl's recovery has been described as "miraculous", however, she continues to suffer life-changing injuries.
Learn correct health and safety and gain a trusted qualification from an institution that has a great reputation and understands not only the trade itself, but also the health and safety regulations that go along with it so that you don’t find yourself in a situation such as this, and beyond.
What Phil Hodge, South Regional Director, Federation of Master Builders had to say:
“The major issue that we have in this country is that the domestic, small business part of the construction industry is completely unregulated and anybody can be a builder. Literally, all you need is a white van and a ladder and you can be out there saying to people that you're a builder. What we're doing as a trade federation is to try and encourage the government into adopting mandatory licensing so that every builder, regardless of the type of work they do, have to show a minimum level of competency."
Check out some of our courses, we hold high standards of training that will set you up for real-life situations; therefore you will be trained to inherently be in control of situations and avoid fault or accident.
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