A company that supplies and installs underground services and its director have been fined a total of $69,500, and ordered to pay $4,391 in costs, over an incident in which a worker sustained serious permanent injuries.
Sunchaser Enterprises pleaded guilty to failing to provide and maintain a safe workplace, which caused serious harm to an employee, and was fined $45,000 in the Northam Magistrates Court yesterday.
The company was also fined $2,000 for permitting an employee to do construction work when he did not hold a construction induction training certificate.
Sunchaser director Andrew Gorringe was fined $22,500 after the court found the offence was attributable to his neglect.
The incident occurred in February 2016, while Mr Gorringe was operating an excavator to lay cables at a new housing estate in Wundowie.
The worker was injured after he attempted to cut rope tied to the end of the cables, when the excavator failed and the cable drum fell and pinned him to the ground.
He suffered multiple serious injuries to his chest, back and legs that have rendered him unable to return to manual labouring work.
The equipment Mr Gorringe used in the suspension was not rated for lifting, an he did not hold the relevant high-risk work licence.
Mr Gorringe himself had suffered serious injuries as a result of a similar incident in 1998 when a cable drum fell on him.
WorkSafe WA commissioner Darren Kavanagh said the case was an example of a blatant failure to provide and maintain a safe workplace that had devastating consequences for a worker.
“It’s reasonable to assume that Mr Gorringe should have foreseen this hazard, especially since he had been involved in a similar incident,” he said.
“The unfortunate victim of Mr Gorringe’s failures, who was only 30 years old at the time, now has to live and work for the rest of his life with the limitations his severe injuries have resulted in."
