A BUILDER has been found guilty of breaching health and safety rules after a large metal pipe fell onto a six-year-old boy’s head.
As reported in the A&T, Southampton Crown Court heard how the incident happened while the youngster walked past a house on School Road, Totton, on 20th July 2021.
A cast iron soil stack pipe fell from a house being worked on by building company Sage Homes, with the six-year-old victim surviving the ordeal but suffering serious injuries including a fractured skull and neck.
Director Jason Scorey previously pleaded not guilty to breaking health and safety regulations.
Southampton Crown Court
The company, based at Solent Business Centre on Millbrook Road West, also pleaded not guilty to failing to discharge its general health, safety and welfare duty.
The jury returned guilty verdicts for both counts today (Monday), after Judge Nigel Peters KC earlier agreed he would accept majority verdicts.
During the trial, which began last week, the court heard it had taken two men to lift the pipe off the boy.
Health and Safety Inspector Alexander Ashen, who investigated the incident, told the jury the pipe could have been “at least 100 years old”.
Pointing to the pipe, which was displayed in court, he added: “You can see how corroded and old it is.”
The inspector said the brackets and nails which held it to the house were also in the same condition.
The husband of the boy’s mother, who had also seen the pipe fall as he waited to pick up the pair on School Road, said in a statement he had heard a workman at the scene say to another one: “We should have tied it up.”
Scorey said the incident had “rocked him to his core” but he also believed it was “unforeseeable” and he had no reason to think the pipe was a danger.
Fellow director at Sage Homes, Philip Hennessey, later arrived at the scene, calling the incident “a freak accident”, the court heard.
Sentencing will take place at the court on 12th September.