A construction management company and a director of a construction firm have been fined after employees were exposed to asbestos at a construction site.

Work was carried out by three employees of Chelmsford firm Cowen Builders on a site at Kensington Church Street in London.

The workers were exposed to asbestos over several days after it was disturbed. It will be several years before it is known if the expose will result in asbestos related disease causing ill health and death.

Westminster Magistrates' Court heard how in Mary 2013, Cowen had been contracted by Paragon Management UK to carry out work on the premises.

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Prior to this work, asbestos had been identified in a survey by Paragon.

Paragon failed to provide the details of the survey to Cowen prior to the work starting.

Cowen had also failed to consider the possibility of asbestos being present and then continued the work without adequate measures in place after it was known the asbestos had been disturbed.

Paragon, from Austin Friars, London, was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay £2,373 in costs after pleading guilty to an offence under Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. They were also ordered to pay compensation to each of the three workers.

Kenneth W Cowen, sole director of Cowen Builders of South Woodham Ferrers, Chelmsford, Essex, was fined £15,000, and ordered to pay £2,373 in costs after pleading guilty to offences under Section 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

(LM)