A building owner has been sentenced to 12 months in prison after an employee was left paralysed when a hoist platform he was working from plummeted from the third floor to ground level.
On 9 January 2017 an employee of Mr Nicholas Devine was working at a premise on School Lane, Seaforth, Liverpool where a floor of the commercial building was being fitted out as a recording studio. This required repairing the timber frame around the lift shaft and rehanging the doors. When standing on the platform of the goods lift, it fell to the ground floor without any warning, causing serious spinal and head injuries to a worker that resulted in paralysis of the lower half of the body.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the hoist had not been adequately inspected and maintained and was not suitable to support people when in the raised position. The hoist was not suitable for use with a platform to serve different levels without significant modification.