Anson Packaging was fined £50,015 with nearly £30,000 costs after 24-year-old pipe fitter Anthony Strong employed by Cambs Compressor Engineering (CCE) broke his back after falling from a roof void.

CCE was also fined £18,015 with costs of around £8.500 following an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Strong was installing pipe work required for the installation of a moulding machine at Anson Packaging's premises on 29 October 2008.

Part of the pipe work installation was taking place in the roof void above a suspended ceiling, a distance of 6.5 metres to the factory floor. It required that Strong and a co-worker use a crawl board to travel from the protected walkways in the roof to the place where the pipe work was to be installed.

Both men had harnesses but they were unable to use them effectively due to a lack of suitable attachment points in the roof void. At times both men had to detach themselves completely to move across the void to the work position.

According to the HSE, Strong was using the crawl board between beams in the roof void to traverse to his working position when he fell to the floor, suffering fractures to his spine, skull and ribs.

The investigation found that, despite the fact that some measures were taken to assess risk and some work at height equipment was provided prior to the work being carried out, both Anson Packaging and CCE had failed to ensure that employees were competent to undertake work at height and given appropriate equipment and a safe system of work.

HSE Inspector Gavin Bull said: "Falls from height are one of the most common, yet preventable, causes of injury at work. In 2008/2009, more than 4,000 major injuries were caused by falls from height at work.

"In this case a man suffered serious personal injuries because work at height was not properly planned.

"Both companies had a duty to ensure that work at height undertaken by their own employees, or on their behalf by staff employed by subcontractors, was properly managed with safe systems of work agreed and implemented.

"Although some work equipment was provided to the two workers to enable them to undertake the work at height it was not suitable for the particular roof space and the workers were not trained in its correct use."