Two brothers have been fined after allowing employees to work at height unsafely in East Sussex.

Jason and Gary White, both directors of G E White & Sons, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 for failure to comply with Section 4 1(c) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.

They were each fined £6,000 and ordered to pay costs of £1,362 between them.

Worthing Magistrates' Court heard company workers were developing a steel frame for an agricultural farm building at Blakeney Avenue, Lewes on 17 March 2015.


An inspector from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) told the court he saw roof sheets being fitted at approximately four to five meters from the floor with no safety netting or scaffold, along with workers standing on roof sheets.

They were immediately served with a Prohibition Notice preventing them from continuing work until the safety issues were remedied.

However, when HSE visited the site again six days later the structure was only half netted and one side of the scaffold had been removed.

The court heard back in 2011 exactly the same issue had been identified on another site on the Directors and an Improvement Noticed had been issued to their company, G E White and Sons, to put in place a management system.

(LM)