Jersey Unreported Judgments

 2001/152

ROYAL COURT

(Samedi Division)

20th July 2001

The Attorney General

-v-

Hotel de France (Jersey) Ltd

Plea:    Facts admitted.

Details of Offence:

Hotel was undertaking redecoration of bedrooms on its eighth floor.  After decorators had finished, Hotel handyman was asked to reinstate the bedrooms.  He took it upon himself to attempt to re-connect a permanently wired electric kettle to the socket and suffered an electric shock at mains voltage.  Suffered a burnt thumb and was thrown backwards by the shock but fortunately made a full recovery.  The Hotel failed to ensure the safety of its employees by making sure that the electricity was disconnected and isolated before requiring the handyman to enter the room (count 1).  It should have had a safe system of work in place to ensure that those working on or near electric equipment were not exposed to danger: (count 2).  Two Improvement Notices were served on Hotel subsequent to accident requiring compliance with 1989 Law.  Adequate steps had been taken by date of sentencing. 

Details of Mitigation:

Prompt admission of liability and timely guilty plea.  No serious injury.  Both charges arose from same incident.  Defence invited Court to sentence only one.  Relatively good record - only one previous 11 years ago, dealt with in Magistrate's Court.  Handyman contributed to the accident by "using his initiative" to do job for which he was not trained, nor expected to do.  Court invited to consider Howe factors.

Previous Convictions:

1990 contravention of Regulation 5(1)(c) Safeguarding of Workers (Highly Flammable Liquids) (Jersey) Regulations 1979.

Conclusions:

Sentence and Observations of Court:

Conclusions granted.  Court observed that had there been no accident Count 2 would still have been appropriate and they were, thus, separate counts.

Mrs. S. Sharpe, Crown Advocate.

Advocate D.J. Benest for the defendant.

JUDGMENT

THE BAILIFF:

1.        These were serious breaches of the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989 which could easily have had fatal consequences, although by good fortune the employee's injuries were relatively minor. 

2.        The defendant company had no standard procedures, nor formal arrangements for the disconnection of electricity and safety isolation procedures.  There were no arrangements for the handover of bedrooms by electricians to decorators and others.  In short, there was no system of work which ensured the safety of employees.  Furthermore the employee in question here had clearly not received adequate training to prevent injury to himself. 

3.        The defendant company has a previous conviction, in 1990, for an offence under the Safeguarding of Workers (Highly Flammable Liquids) (Jersey) Regulations  1979, but nothing else known to its detriment. 

4.        In mitigation, as defence counsel has cogently argued, there was a prompt admission of liability and steps were taken to remedy the deficiencies identified by the inspectors.  It is true that the employee had not been directed to do what he did in attempting to re-connect the electric kettle.  The force of that mitigating factor is, however, diminished by the absence of formal written procedures setting out the responsibilities of different employees.  We have taken account of the matters argued by defence counsel and, in particular, of the steps taken by the defendant company since the accident for which the defendant company is entitled to credit. 

5.        Notwithstanding all that, the offences were serious and we think that the total penalty moved for by the Crown properly reflects the gravity of the offending. We have given careful consideration to the submission of defence counsel that the two charges on the billet are duplicitous.  We accept the submission that there is, to some extent, an overlapping between the two charges, but we think that there is a distinction to be drawn between them.  We propose to impose a penalty which reflects what, in our judgement, is the totality of the offending. 

6.        On that basis we grant the conclusions and we fine the defendant company on charge one; £7,500, on charge two; £7,500, making a total of £15,000 and we order the defendant company to pay the costs of the prosecution not exceeding £2,500.            

Authorities

AG-v-Ernest Farley & Son, Ltd (14^th April, 2000) Jersey Unreported; [2000/70].

AG-v-C.I. Bakery, Ltd (21^st June 1996) Jersey Unreported.

AG-v-Leader Health Foods, Ltd (14^th October 1994) Jersey Unreported.

AG-v-Biggs (23^rd February 2001) Jersey Unreported; [2001/50].

R-v-F. Howe & Sons (Engineers) Ltd [1999] 2 All ER 249 C.A.