Two firms found guilty over Worthing crane deaths

Two firms have been found guilty of health and safety breaches relating to the deaths of two men on a construction site in Worthing in 2005.

At Chichester Crown Court on Friday, WD Bennett’s Plant & Services was found guilty of two health and safety breaches that led to the death of two workers and injured a third. The firm had earlier pleaded not guilty.

WD Bennett was found to have breached section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and regulation 4(1) of the Construction (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1996.

Eurolift (Tower Cranes) pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and Regulation 4(1) of the Construction (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1996.

The trial began on 16 March 2009. The court heard how the accident occurred during the dismantling of a tower crane on a Willmott Dixon school site.

The two companies will be sentenced on another date, which has yet to be set.

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Mann Construction enters voluntary administration

Enfield-based Mann Construction has entered administration.

The civils and groundworking firm has left behind a string of creditors, some of which are thought to be owed hundreds of thousands of pounds. 

The contractor, which operates mostly in the South and South East, specialises in partnering, social housing and healthcare. It recorded a turnover of ВЈ67m in 2007.

Mann says on its website that it handles contracts worth between ВЈ500,000 and ВЈ20m and works as a subcontractor to a number of major contractors including Willmott Dixon, Morgan Ashurst, Higgins, Carillion and Balfour Beatty.

It is understood that the firm entered administration voluntarily this week.

A spokeswoman confirmed that the firm had appointed administrators but the name of the administrator has not yet been confirmed.

Check ContractJournal.com for more updates as they emerge.

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£17m sewage scheme for Scottish Highlands beauty spot

Black & Veatch has started work on a ВЈ17m sewage scheme at Cromarty Firth on the northeast coast of Scotland, an area famous for its birdlife and cruise liner visits

The Belleport project involves the design, procurement and construction of a new wastewater treatment works and sludge treatment centre.

Existing sewage sites at Alness Point and Rosskeen are being converted into pumping stations that will eventually transfer wastewater to the new works for treatment before discharge to the Cromarty Firth.

The 15-month project forms part of Scottish Water’s '2010 Vision for the Highlands', a £200m investment campaign of improvements throughout the north of Scotland.

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Isle of Wight contractor fined after dump truck overturns

An Isle of Wight building contractor has been fined ВЈ7,000 and ordered to pay costs of ВЈ5,728.50 after a dump truck overturned, injuring its untrained driver.

Shanklin-based A. Carpenter & Sons (Builders) was found guilty of a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act at Newport Magistrates' Court following an investigation by the Health & Safety Executive.

The incident in Wootton, Isle of Wight, occurred on 23 November 2007. The driver of the skip-loading dump truck had not been trained properly, nor had a full risk assessment been carried out. As a result, the truck overturned and he suffered sprained ligaments and injuries to his left knee.

Joanna Woodcock, HSE Inspector, said: "In this incident an untrained driver, a slippery slope and an awkward route resulted in the dumper overturning. It was a matter of luck that nobody was killed."

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Wrekin's £11m ruby changed hands for just £13,000 in 1998

Wrekin Construction’s most dazzling asset – “The Gem of Tanzania” - was bought for just £13,000 by its first owner.

That's despite the fact that its third owner, David Unwin, used it to step forward two years ago and 'invest ВЈ11m' into Wrekin when it was on its knees after racking up operating losses while run by Simon Frain (chairman) and John Worthington (chief executive).

Wrekin went into administration three weeks ago.

Unwin’s 2.1kg gemstone had passed through the hands of two previous owners since being discovered in 1998 by an African miner working for Ideal Standards, a company working near the small town of Arusha in Tanzania.

The Financial Times has uncovered a series of twists and turns in the fascinating story from that moment on.

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Trevor Michael Hart-Jones had invested in Ideal Standards and the company sold him the item for a mere ВЈ13,000.

“It was not Hart-Jones’s first foray into gem dealing,” said the FT. “He was convicted of illegal diamond trading in South Africa in the early 1980s.”

“Moreover, in 1997, he struck a deal with an illegal junta in Sierra Leone to exploit its mineral resources, according to official testimony from Ahmed Kabbah, the elected president restored to power in 1998.

“Businesses run by Hart-Jones would in return have raised a £670m loan for the junta.”

Hart-Jones, interviewed last week in his cottage in East Sussex, said he was wrongly convicted of illegal diamond trading.

The same man appeared on BBC Newsnight in 2007 when a ВЈ100m scheme, apparently backed by the Swaziland royal family, surfaced in which an Aids cure that he was pedalling turned out to be nothing more than вЂgoat serum’ and the claims of people being cured within 20 minutes were treated with amazement.

Over the weekend Hart-Jones told the FT: “I have a slightly chequered past. All these things have been taken out of context.”

The ruby landed in the UK in 2002. Hart-Jones didn’t find it easy to track down a buyer but eventually it was transferred to the ownership of Tony Howarth.

Howarth now lives in Switzerland.

In 2006, Howarth and Unwin shook hands on a deal that saw “The Gem of Tanzania” pass across to Unwin, along with “some Rolls Royce cars” in exchange for a parcel of land.

As part of that deal the gem was valued at ВЈ300,000.

In 2007, Tamar switched its accountants to Ashgates, the Derby-based accountancy group. Ashgates accepted the rock’s raised value of £11m.

When contacted by ContractJournal.com, Ashgates refused to discuss the gem. Requests were turned down with the reply: “We can’t comment.”

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Engineer jailed for 10 years for incest and paedophile offences

ICE Fellow and leading geotechnical engineer Dr Peter Rankilor was jailed for 10 years last week after being found guilty of 24 serious sexual offences against children.

Rankilor, 66, is an expert on the design and application of geotextiles, geomembranes and geosynthetics.

He was sentenced on Friday last week following a trial at Minshull Crown Court in Manchester in January where he was found guilty of a series of charges of indecent assault and incest between 1980 and 1986.

He was arrested after a woman went to police to report that he had molested her in the 1980s. Police discovered within the course of his investigation that he had also abused another young girl.

Judge Mushtaq Khokhar told Rankilor that he had “robbed these girls of their innocence at a very early age”, and that despite claims of ill health, the severity and quantity of offences meant “the only possible sentence I can impose is a custodial one”.

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Mitie says outsourcing market is still attractive

The market for outsourced services remains attractive says Mitie.

Mitie, the outsourcing and asset management company, issued a trading update this morning ahead of its financial results for the 12-month period ending on 31 March.

Profits are reported to have been in line with management expectations.

Mitie enjoyed “good growth” in the second half of the year, despite a slowing in some areas of its business such as interior fit-out and new-build housing – though it only has limited exposure to these sectors

“In the period since our last interim management statement, we have been particularly pleased with our progress in sectors that support the UK’s national infrastructure, both through our public and private sector clients,” says the group.

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Utilities - preferred bidder for a six-year integrated facilities management contract with Thames Water with an estimated total to Mitie of over ВЈ100m.

Healthcare - a multi-service contract with St. Georges Healthcare NHS
Trust, whose main site in Tooting, South West London, is one of the UK’s largest teaching hospitals.

Social housing - day-to-day responsive repairs to 6,500 properties in Hampshire, Wiltshire and Berkshire in a four-year contract with Wessex Housing Partnership with a total value of ВЈ9m.

Also an award from St Pancras & Humanist Housing Association, valued at ВЈ7m over four years, to deliver a responsive repairs, voids and adaptations
service to the tenants of 5,300 homes across North London and the Home Counties.

In North Hampshire, Mitie has renewed and expanded its repairs and maintenance contract with Sentinel Housing Association. The new contract, valued at ВЈ50m over five years, starts in April 2009. It involves 7,300 homes.

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