Farmer fined after friend suffers fatal cowshed fall

A farmer has been ordered to pay almost £30,000 after a friend who was working for him died when he fell through a cowshed roof.

Robert Latham, 64, of Knolton Farm, Overton, near Wrexham, pleaded guilty to a breach of health and safety regulations following the incident on 19 July last year. 

David Alan Rees, 56, of Ruabon, was fatally injured while he was clearing out moss from a gutter at Knolton Farm, North East Wales Magistrates’ Court at Mold was told. 

See also: Farm health and safety: Working at height

Mr Rees fell from a ladder to the floor of the cowshed under the sky light. An ambulance was sent to the scene, which took him to hospital, but he died from his injuries.

Knolton Farm’s cowshed roof © HSE

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found Mr Latham failed to plan the work at height and did not have any suitable equipment available to do the work safely.

There were no measures in place to prevent Mr Rees falling from the roof or through the skylight.

‘Tragic case’

James Buchanan, defending, told the court it was a “genuinely tragic case”. His client “thought he had a safe system of work in place. He didn’t”.

Mr Latham pleaded guilty to breaching section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. He was fined £26,000 and has also been ordered to pay costs of £3,922.60 and a surcharge of £170.

Speaking after the case, HSE inspector Mhairi Duffy said: “There are no winners in this tragic case.

“Those in control of work have a responsibility to devise safe methods of working and to provide the necessary information, instruction and training to their workers and contractors in the safe system of working.

“If a suitable safe system of work had been in place prior to the incident, the death could have been prevented.”