An Eccles-based construction company has been prosecuted after a fork lift truck overturned and seriously injured a 58-year-old worker.

Worsley Projects Limited trading as Egan Projects, of 19 Green Lane, Eccles was found guilty of breaching Regulation 4(1) of the Working at Height Regulations 2005. It was fined £10,000 with over £1,194 in costs.

Manchester Magistrates' Court heard that the company had been employed by Edmundson Electrical to carry out refurbishment work on a new unit it had leased on 23 June 2015.

Works included installing new IT cabling between the new unit and the existing building. The new cabling was being attached to existing cabling around seven metres above road surface, with plastic cable ties.

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The victim was using the fork lift truck and man-riding cage to carry out the project. However, when the work was nearly complete, the vehicle overturned in an area where the road was sloped. The employee grabbed the existing cabling as the overturn occurred but then fell to the floor and suffered serious injuries to his pelvis, vertebrae and right hand..

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found Worsley Projects Limited trading as Egan Projects had produced a risk assessment and method statement and decided that the work be carried out using a fork lift truck and attached man-riding cage.

However, the incident could have been prevented by providing more suitable equipment to avoid working on the sloping road surface.

HSE inspector David Norton said: "Falls from height are still the most common cause of serious accidents in the workplace in the UK and many could have been prevented if the correct equipment had been selected and used.

"This is the situation in this case a cherry picker type Mobile Elevating Working Platform (MEWP) could have avoided the sloped road surface where the incident occurred."

(LM/CD)