A civil engineering firm has been fined £600K for safety breaches after a seven-year-old child became trapped and suffocated on a construction site.
Seven-year-old Conley Thompson went missing from his home on the morning of in July 2015 after telling his mum he was going to play.
His body was found the next morning by workers at the construction site at Bank End Road, Worsborough, in South Yorkshire.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that Conley had become trapped in a drainage pipe, which had been fixed into the ground in preparation for the installation of fencing posts.
Tragically, he had suffocated before being found the next morning when work restarted on site.
Howard Civil Engineering Ltd of Howard House Limewood Approach Leeds pleaded guilty to breaching regulation 13(4)(b) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 and to breaching Section 3 (1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
The company was fined £600,000 and ordered to pay £42,952.88 in costs at Sheffield Crown Court today.
The construction site was a new-build housing development next to an existing housing estate and adjacent to busy pedestrian footpaths and roads.
HSE found that there was insufficient fencing in place to prevent unauthorised persons from accessing the construction site due to a combination of poor planning, management and monitoring of the site and its perimeter.
Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Paul Yeadon said: “Conley should never have been able to be on that site. He should have been kept out.
“The construction industry should be aware of the dangers of construction sites to members of the public and any other unauthorised persons."
During the court case Andrew McGee, prosecuting on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive, said that the boy "clearly had a history of going on to the Church View site" and it was "a location he found tempting to enter".
Mr McGee said: "He was not alone in this amongst the children of this residential area."
He added: "There is no precise timeline for the events of that day. Despite intensive investigations, there is no evidence of when, how, or, if he was not alone, with whom Conley entered the site prior to his death."
Mr McGee said a pathologist concluded Conley must have gone into the pipe, designed to house fence posts, with both feet at the same time.
"The pathologist says it's possible he slipped in with both feet while standing on the edge, or he might have lowered himself in - nobody knows," he said.
There was no suggestion of foul play, the court heard.
Mr McGee said: "The company fell far short of the appropriate standard. It failed to have in place perimeter fencing consistent with industry standards.
"Perimeter barriers were obviously, we say, inadequate and, in some places, non-existent."
