Contractor fined after deadly fall thru warehouse roof

Ross Hanratty, 28, used to be running to transparent roof gutters on two warehouses for Ipsum Drainage (Scotland) Restricted at Edinburgh’s Seafield Commercial Property in October 2022 when he fell 24 toes.

The well being & protection investigation used to be led through the Town of Edinburgh Council together with Police Scotland.

The investigation discovered that Ipsum Drainage had despatched Hanratty and some other employee to transparent roof gutters on two blocks of warehouses. It used to be a two-day task, in the future for every block, On the second one morning Hanratty used to be running by myself at the roof of the second one block. He used to be dressed in a harness however there used to be not anything to attach it to. He fell thru a piece of fragile subject material right into a unit occupied through Rembrand Trees. He died on account of his accidents.

On Thursday 19^th February 2026, Ipsum Drainage (Scotland) Restricted (a part of the Ipsum Staff), of Hillington Park, Glasgow, pleaded in charge on Indictment to an offence underneath Phase 2(1) of the Well being and Protection at Paintings and so on. Act 1974.

The corporate used to be fined £183,000.

Ipsum had did not make an acceptable and enough chance evaluate , failed to supply a secure machine of labor and failed to supply such data and instruction as used to be important to verify, as far as used to be relatively practicable, the well being protection and welfare of staff.

Cllr Neil Ross, convener of Edinburgh Town Council’s regulatory committee, stated: “This sentence must ship a transparent message to employers that the council and the courts take a failure to conform to well being and protection law extraordinarily significantly.

“We lengthen our trustworthy condolences to Mr Hanratty’s circle of relatives and family members at this very tough time.  This can be a tragic coincidence that will have been averted. Mr Hanratty used to be new to his task and had no earlier enjoy running at heights, he used to be no longer supplied with the important protection data, instruction, and gear to stay him secure while running at top.

“Falls from top are the most typical explanation for loss of life and severe harm to other folks at paintings. Falls thru fragile roofing fabrics account for plenty of of those deaths. Those incidents can also be averted if relatively practicable measures are installed position to offer protection to staff.”

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