27 February 2019
Nunes Gardening & Maintenance Limited was fined £15,000 and ordered to pay £2,000 towards costs by the Royal Court on 8 February 2019 after pleading guilty to a breach of Article 3 of the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989.
The prosecution arose as a result of an incident on 16 May 2018, in which an employee of the company suffered serious and life changing injuries following a fall from a cliff near to Bonne Nuit.
Investigation by the Health and Safety Inspectorate identified that the company had been carrying out gardening work at the private cliff top property for a number of years before the incident in May. A gardener from the company would attend the property approximately once per month and whilst the majority of the work was carried out within the fenced garden, occasionally he would be asked to carry out work outside of the garden fence on the cliff top edge.
Despite the obvious risk posed by working on an exposed cliff edge, there had been no risk assessment of the work carried out and there was no supervision by the company of workers at the property.
It was whilst carrying out his gardening work on the cliff top, the employee fell some 25 metres to the beach below suffering injuries that have left him permanently paralysed below the waist. A major rescue effort was required on the day of the accident to recover the injured person involving Jersey Fire and Rescue Service, the RNLI and the Ambulance Service.
Further Information
Guidance on risk assessment
gov.je