The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has prosecuted two companies after an unlicensed contractor removed asbestos from a warehouse in Enfield, Middlesex.

In November 2005, Noble Gift Packaging Ltd contracted A&T Roofing Ltd to remove the roof from a building on Lockfield Avenue, Brimsdown, Enfield. The roof was lined with 3,000 square metres of asbestos insulating board containing Amosite (brown asbestos fibres). The material should only be removed by a licensed asbestos contractor in highly controlled conditions.

On Tuesday (06/10/09) at Southwark Crown Court, A&T Roofing Ltd of 191 Bowes Road, Enfield, was fined £25,000 and ordered to pay costs of £33,844.30, having pleaded guilty on 1 September 2009 to breaching Regulation 3(1) of the Asbestos (Licensing) Regulations 1983 – and Sections 2(1) and 3(1) Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

In October 2008 at the City of London Magistrates’ Court, Noble Gift Packaging Ltd, of 73 Lockfield Avenue, Enfield, had pleaded guilty a breach of Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was fined £40,000 and ordered to pay costs of £19,223.65.

Employees from A&T Roofing had taken 12 weeks to remove the material and had smashed it up before sweeping up the debris and placing it in bags. They were not provided with protective equipment, even after the company discovered the material contained Amosite. Managers allowed the workers to continue the task, although employees complained and a test revealed the presence of asbestos.

The workers’ clothes were contaminated with potentially deadly fibres, which they carried onto public transport and into their homes, placing themselves, their families and the general public at risk from exposure to asbestos.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE Inspector Sarah Snelling said that the exposure to asbestos incurred by the men working on the project was the worst the HSE’s specialist inspector had seen in more than 15 years of dealing with asbestos cases.

‘A&T Roofing Ltd’s cavalier attitude towards the removal of the asbestos has put the future health of their employees, their employees’ families and members of the public in general at serious risk,’ she said.

‘Not everyone exposed to asbestos goes on to develop life-threatening or terminal asbestos-related conditions such as lung cancer, asbestosis or mesothelioma. However, when people do develop such conditions, it is often many years after they were exposed. All the men exposed – and their families – will have this hanging over them for the rest of their lives.’

Ms Snelling called the action of A&T Roofing Ltd ‘unpardonable’ – and said they had been advised two weeks into the project of the presence of the material, but allowed workers to continue handling it on site for a further 10 weeks. She added that Noble Gift Packaging Ltd –

as the client for the work – should have taken ‘the basic step’ of having a full asbestos survey carried out after they were informed in a valuation survey that the roof contained asbestos.

‘This could have prevented this whole tragic case,’ she added.

‘HSE will always push for the harshest penalties in such cases,’ Ms Snelling warned companies.

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