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Roofing company ordered to pay $70,000 after worker fell through skylight

AAPFremantle Gazette

A ROOFING  company has been ordered to pay more than $70,000 after a labourer was seriously injured when he fell five metres through a skylight in Perth.

Round Table Roofing was carrying out refurbishment roofing work for Deslin, trading as Roofing 2000, at a 40-year-old building on Canning Highway in Bicton in September 2015 when the worker fell.

Round Table Roofing pleaded guilty in Fremantle Magistrates Court to failing to provide a safe work environment, resulting in serious harm to a person.

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The company was fined $70,000 plus costs of $1369.

The injured man was a roof labourer who was standing on a loose insulation roll next to the edge of a skylight.

He was not aware of the skylight and took a step back, losing his balance and falling through.

The man fell about five metres to the concrete floor below, sustaining multiple fractures and other serious injuries.

The operation manager of Deslin was fined $7500 in June over the same incident.

WorkSafe WA Commissioner Lex McCulloch said the worker was very fortunate to survive.

“Over the past 10 years, 31 WA workers have lost their lives as the result of work-related falls, five of these during the 2016/17 financial year,” he said on Tuesday.

“Add to this the number of workers who have sustained permanent and life-changing injuries in falls, and the size of the problem becomes apparent.”

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