A construction client has been handed a suspended prison sentence after a worker was found dead on a building site in north London.
Moses Meisels received a 12-week prison sentence, suspended for one year, and was ordered to pay £10,000 in costs by City of London Magistrates Court after pleading guilty to breaching the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015.
The Metropolitan Police discovered the man’s body at the site of a synagogue development at Upper Clapton Road, Hackney, in December 2018.
Although the worker had died as a result of natural causes, subsequent inspections by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) revealed multiple life-threatening safety failures at the site.
Meisels was overseeing major structural work to enlarge the synagogue. The HSE said he repeatedly ignored warnings about dangerous practices, putting construction workers at serious risk of fatal falls.
Following the discovery of the man’s body, HSE inspectors conducted four separate visits over five months, during which they uncovered several serious failures.
The failures included: workers operating on the roof beyond the protection of scaffolding edge barriers; large, unprotected holes in the ground floor that created fall risks into the basement; a single unsecured ladder as the only access to the first floor, which didn’t extend far enough to provide a safe handhold; and construction waste dangerously stacked in the front garden.
HSE inspector David King said: “It is essential that clients make suitable arrangements for managing a project, including the allocation of sufficient time and other resources.
“Clients should be aware that HSE will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action [against] them if [they] fail to ensure their construction projects meet the required standards.”
