A business man in charge of converting an old mill has been jailed, and his father, the owner of the building, given a suspended jail sentence following an incident in which a Lithuanian worker died in a fall.
The worker, Ivars Bahmanis, a 55 year old Lithuanian national living and working in Blackburn, was involved in building work at the former canal works building at Manner Sutton Street when he fell nearly eight metres and died as a result. During the investigation HSE discovered that another employee Juris Lesinkis, a Latvian national living and working in Blackburn had fallen from a height and broken his leg at the same site, an accident which was not reported to HSE.
At the sentencing hearing on the 19th May, Preston Crown Court heard that Mr Bahmanis was carrying out refurbishment work involving installing metal brackets for new roof joists when the incident happened on the 29th January 2012. While he was working alone he fell from the wall, due to a complete lack of safety measures being in place.
Three members of the same family who had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to the charges received the following sentences.
Tameem Shafi, 31 (19/5/84), of Clarence Street, Blackburn, who was in charge of the project, was sent to prison for 45 weeks for two breaches of regulation 6 (3) of the Work at Height regulations 2005.