Cornwall Council has prosecuted the owner of a Penzance shop, after a heavy metal sign disconnected itself from the shopfront and fell onto a child in a pushchair.
The council said that the child was lucky to escape with just cuts and bruises, after a 4.4kg sign fell from approximately 15ft from a kebab shop in Penzance.
The fixings used to hang the sign above Rami’s Kebab shop in Market Jew Street, Penzance, failed due to windy conditions on 18 May 2015. The business was warned only hours earlier about the state of the sign.
An investigation by Cornwall Council Public Protection found that the sign had been “hanging by a thread” for around 18 months, with the operator of the business failing to deal with the matter.
The council said that the strength of a gust of wind that dislodged the sign, led to it being blown onto railings, before falling onto the child in the pushchair.
However, magistrates were told that the incident could have been prevented had the operator of the business had regular checks in place to ensure the integrity of the building and building elements.
At Truro Magistrates’ Court, Kamis Kebab Limited and Director Serif Kandemir of Market Jew Street, Penzance, were fined £6,300 and ordered to pay full costs of £2,906.95, a victim surcharge of £150 and £100 compensation to the family, after pleading guilty to a single breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
After sentencing, Cornwall Council Senior Environmental Health Officer, Tim Bage, said:
“This was an entirely preventable incident that resulted in a large sign falling onto an innocent pedestrian.
“It is sheer luck that it struck the railings below before falling onto the child, otherwise the child could well have been killed.
“The operator of the building was warned about the signs perilous state in the hours before it failed.”
The council is urging shop operators and building owners to ensure that they conduct regular maintenance checks on the external facades of the premises in which they operate, to ensure that the building elements are in good repair – this is particularly important in Cornwall, where there are a large number of premises exposed to the effects of salt water corrosion and coastal winds.
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