Schoolkids exposed to asbestos fibres

EC Harris and window manufacturer Clivnars were ordered to pay out a total of £75,000 in fines and costs in November 2004 after a court heard how hundreds of schoolchildren were exposed to the risk of inhaling asbestos fibres during refurbishment work.

Prosecuting on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive, Jonathan Ashley-Norman told Basildon Crown Court that the incident happened in March 2001 at Stanway School, near Colchester, in Essex.

EC Harris had been employed by the school to oversee a programme of repairs, while Clivnars were subcontracted by EC Harris to replace windows and associated fittings in the Rutherford block, a 1960s building. To carry out the work, Clivnars shut off two rooms at a time. The rest of the block remained open during the work and rooms were returned to use once the windows had been replaced. Around 700 children used the building around this time, along with teachers and other school staff.

However, as the work was nearing completion, two teachers questioned the make-up of the insulating boards found in the partition walls surrounding the windows. A specialist company was called in to examine the panels and found that they contained brown asbestos.

An inspection of the building found that every room had been contaminated with suspected asbestos fibres as a result of old panels being removed or exposed. Asbestos-containing panels were also found in a skip in the playground. The subsequent clean-up operation cost £120,000 and the school had to replace about £100,000 worth of contaminated equipment.

Ashley-Norman told the court that a competent building surveyor would assume that asbestos was present in a 1960s building such as the Rutherford block, and that it was standard industry practice to carry out a full survey of such buildings before proceeding with any refurb work.

Partial survey

The court heard that EC Harris had instead relied on a 1997 survey of the school, which only identified the presence of asbestos in another building. However, the survey clearly stated that only a small sample of the buildings had been looked at and that it was not comprehensive, said Ashley-Norman.

In mitigation, EC Harris, which pleaded guilty in March 2004, said that the employees responsible for the work at the site had come from a firm it had recently taken over. Clivnars, which also pleaded guilty, said that it accepted responsibility for its role in the incident.

EC Harris Human Resources, a subsidiary of EC Harris, was fined £17,500 under Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety At Work Act (HSWA) and ordered to pay £26,420 costs. Clivnars was fined a total of £15,000 under sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the HSWA and ordered to pay £16,500 costs.

Sentencing the two firms, Recorder Patrick Moloney QC said that although the probability of anyone becoming ill as a result of the incident was low, it would not have happened if the two companies had followed their own health and safety policies.

Speaking after the case, investigating HSE inspector John Claxton said: “Construction, Design and Management legislation requires site supervisors to be aware of the risk of asbestos and to manage that risk.

The HSE has issued lots of advice to the building and glazing industries about where asbestos might be present and how to deal with it correctly.”