A joiner has been fined £10,000 after a resident of Tandragee, Co Armagh, fell through a lift opening.
Coagh man Aidan Lavery, 37, from Battery Road, was fined at a sitting of Newry Crown Court for a charge brought against him by the Health and Safety Executive.
Mr Lavery was engaged in preparatory joinery work on a lift at a two storey house. He was asked to make an opening between the first and ground floors into which a domestic lift was to be installed.
He created the opening for the lift at the property on Friday, October 5 2012. The lift mechanism itself was to be installed the following Monday, but, that Sunday, the householder fell through the opening, some 2.6 metres, suffering severe back and limb injuries.
A fixed temporary cover should have been fitted to prevent people falling through the opening.
Anne Cassidy of HSENI’s Major Investigation Team, said: “A member of the public has suffered extensive life changing injuries which need not have happened if some very basic precautions had been taken.”
