A CONSTRUCTION company has been fined and ordered to pay compensation after a carpenter was injured during the building of a school.

The man fell five metres while trying to secure concrete shutters at Frederick Bremer School, in Siddeley Road, Walthamstow, in October 2007.

The worker suffered fractured ribs and collar bone, air in the chest cavity and a dislocated thumb. He spent six weeks in hospital and could not work for six months.

Bouygues Limited was fined £18,000 plus costs of £2,796 after admitting to breaking Health and Safety law by not carrying out the relevant risk assessment.

Also none of the worker's colleagues were trained in how to cope with such an accident.

The company, which has been contracted to rebuild all secondary schools in the borough, was also ordered to pay the worker £5,000 compensation.

Health and Safety Inspector Dominic Elliss said: “A carpenter has sustained life-changing injuries which could easily have proved fatal, because the principle contractor in charge of the site failed to plan the work properly.

“At best the company were placing reliance on a poorly supervised and inadequately trained system of harnessing to mitigate the consequence of falls.”