Portadown builder’s sentence increased at Court of Appeal
Portadown builder Norman McKenzie has his sentence increased at Court of Appeal. This was in relation to health and safety failings that led to the death of his employee Mr. Petyo Hristanov on 20th January 2015 and caused injury to another worker.
The Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland considered the earlier sentence of Mr McKenzie on 10 March 2017 to be unduly lenient and referred the case to the Court of Appeal for review of the sentence.
The DPP presented the case to the Court of Appeal, on the grounds that the sentence handed down fell outside the range of sentences which the judge, applying all relevant factors, should reasonably have considered appropriate.
The Court of Appeal subsequently issued its judgement on 18 May 2017. Mr McKenzie was given a 24-month custodial sentence on the count of manslaughter. Mr McKenzie will serve 12 months in prison and 12 months on licence. In addition the court imposed sentences of 6 months imprisonment on each of the counts relating to Health and Safety offences to run concurrently with the twenty four months imposed on the count of manslaughter. The fines previously imposed were removed.
HSENI, who led the investigation along with PSNI, welcome the Court of Appeal decision which will act as a deterrent to others. This custodial sentence also highlights the vital importance of managing health and safety properly and the very tragic and serious consequences of safety failings.
We concur with Lord Justice Gillen’s observation “The law moves on, the need to protect workmen is now more obvious to us all”. Lord Justice Gillen also said: “deterrence is necessary to prevent others behaving in this way and to bring to the attention of the construction industry generally the consequences of failure to ensure the safety of workmen.”
The case relates to the building of a 3-bay farm shed at Derrycarne Road and brings into clear focus important issues for those who work in both the farming and construction industries. Any farmer who engages the services of a builder must ensure this work is carried out safely and to proper health and safety guidelines. A builder must assess the risks associated with the job and put preventative measures in place. As this case highlights, failure to do so can result in a needless loss of life and strict sentences.
Falls while carrying out work at heights are a well known danger and the preventative measures are easily available. Information on your legal duties about working at height, as a person commissioning the work (the client), or as a person carrying out the work, is available from our fall from height topic page:
If as an employee you are asked to work at heights and are concerned about safety measures please call HSENI’s duty Inspector at HSENI’s Information and Advice Helpline on 0800 0320 121 for more information.
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