Firm fined after steel girder plunges into estate agent office

A steel company has been fined £15,000 after a four-metre metal girder crashed through the roof of a Preston estate agents, narrowly missing two women members of staff.

The beam fell from a crane and smashed through the roof and three floors of Garside Waddingham estate agents last January.

Pocklington Steel Structures was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive following an investigation into what caused the girder to fall from the crane.

Preston magistrates heard that the girder was one of 18 to be lifted by the crane that morning on a construction site for a new hotel.

But HSE found that nothing was done to stop the girders slipping through the chains wrapped around them.

Anthony Polec, the investigating inspector at HSE, said: “It must have been terrifying for the staff on duty in the estate agents that day when they suddenly heard and then saw a steel girder crashing down next to their desks, right where the public normally stand.

“It was only by chance that the incident happened on a Saturday when fewer staff were at work, and that no members of the public were in the building at the time.

“Two office workers had a lucky escape but several people could easily have been killed.”

Pocklington Steel Structures, of Carnaby, East Yorkshire, admitted putting the lives of workers and the public at risk. It was also ordered to pay £6,706 costs in addition to the fine.