An asbestos expert has been fined after workers under his supervision were exposed to potentially-deadly fibres at a college in Greater Manchester.

Steven Kelly was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after three men were spotted without suitable protective clothing in an area of Trafford College in Stretford where asbestos was being removed.

Trafford Magistrates' Court in Sale heard that Manchester-based firm Winsulate had been hired to carry out asbestos removal work during a refurbishment project at the college.

Mr Kelly, 41, from Kirkby in Merseyside, was the supervisor on the project but he ignored the company’s procedures on working with asbestos, and broke the law as a result.

The court was told HSE inspectors carried out an unannounced visit to the college, on Talbot Road, during the evening on 12 December 2012. They witnessed three workers in the area of the college where asbestos was being removed but without suitable protective clothing or masks.

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The inspectors discovered Mr Kelly had sent the men into the undercroft beneath the classrooms, which had been sealed off from the rest of the building, to fix the temporary lighting. They were wearing their own clothes instead of disposable clothing under their overalls, and half masks instead of full-face respiratory masks.

The men were also wearing lace-up instead of wellington boots, which meant asbestos fibres could stick to their laces or get inside their boots.

This led to them being put at risk of breathing in asbestos fibres, and other fibres could have remained on their clothes when they went home to their families in the evening.

Mr Kelly is a fully-trained and qualified supervisor in licensed asbestos removal but, despite this, several other issues were also discovered on the site.

These included insufficient water for workers to properly sponge down boots and masks to stop fibres becoming airborne, used clothing discarded inside the enclosure, and a failure to carry out daily checks on masks.

Mr Kelly, of Burwell Close in Kirkby, was fined £790 and ordered to pay costs of £250 after pleading guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 by failing to take reasonable care of workers under his supervision.

(CD/IT)