A CONSTRUCTION company on trial for breaching the health and safety law made ‘inappropriate assumptions’ about a live cable which later delivered electric shocks to two workmen, the Royal Court has heard.
On the fourth day of the case of the Attorney General against Rok Homes yesterday, the court heard contrasting arguments about who was responsible for the incident at a private residence at West Hill in St Helier.
Closing the case for the prosecution, Crown Advocate Simon Thomas said that Rok had failed to comply with all three parts of section 21 of the Jersey Health and Safety at Work law.
‘The company’s actions were utterly inadequate when set alongside the risk – it was a matter of good fortune that the consequences were not more serious,’ he said.
Advocate Thomas said that when the cable was first discovered in late November 2020, and identified again on 5 December, Rok employees had proceeded on the ‘inappropriate assumption’ that the cable was almost certainly dead, covering the frayed end with a traffic cone and failing to advise Jersey Electricity.
The court heard that two employees from Geomarine, a contractor working on behalf of Jersey Electricity, had subsequently received electric shocks while working on the site in early February 2021, although neither man was seriously hurt. Evidence from a defence witness about the possible cause of the electric shock was questionable, Advocate Thomas added.
‘We heard that the frayed end of the cable was dead, but that the current may have been carried by a gas pipe that became live, but you may think that is a convoluted and speculative suggestion,’ he said.
Advocate Christina Hall, defending, described Rok Homes as ‘a large and well-respected company that prides itself on its health and safety procedures’.
She said: ‘The defence is straightforward – that the company did everything it reasonably could to identify, and assess the risk of, existing services on the site.’
Earlier in the trial, Marc Godel, project director of Rok Homes, said Jersey Electricity had been told about the cable on several occasions prior to the day the workmen suffered shocks, and that the utility company had made ‘a big contribution’ to the risk.
In a statement presented to the court, based on interviews with health and safety officers, Mr Godel said Jersey Electricity had shown ‘very little diligence, very little care’.
Rok Homes entered a not-guilty plea at the start of the trial, which was heard by Commissioner Sir Michael Birt, with Jurats Pamela Pitman and Gareth Hughes sitting. The trial was adjourned yesterday, with a verdict expected to be delivered today.
