A construction company has been fined after a roofer plummeted to his death after falling from scaffolding.

The workman, who was employed on a Amberley Homes building site in Headcorn, had an unwitnessed fall on July 5, 2017.

Mark Tolley, 51, fell nearly two metres through an opening in a scaffold while working on the construction of six houses in Smarden Road.

He suffered broken ribs and serious internal injuries including a punctured lung during the accident.

The roofer managed to stand after the fall but fell to the ground unable to breathe and later died at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford eight days later.

Amberley Homes (Kent) Ltd admitted failing to control the site in court.

The privately-owned company, which is based in London Road, West Kingsdown, near Sevenoaks, plead guilty to breaching the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 at Maidstone’s Nightingale Court in January.

On Friday (March 15), the company was fined £25,000 and ordered to pay £83,842 in costs at Canterbury Crown Court.

Mr Tolley had been installing vertical hanging tiles on one of the new properties being built when he fell through an unguarded opening in the scaffold and landed on the ground below.

An inquest into his death held at County Hall in Maidstone in 2019 heard how tradesmen were engaged in potentially hazardous work practices while developing the site into new homes with “disturbing” safety measures in place.

Fellow workers described seeing Mr Tolley standing on a bundle of timber batons he was using to bridge a gap between scaffolding lifts.

Others stated that floorboards and poles had been removed from the scaffold to allow easier access to parts of the buildings - but, these were not reported to the site manager.

A later investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found Amberley Homes (Kent) Ltd, the principal contractor for the project, had not appointed a person with the necessary skills, knowledge, experience and training to manage the construction site.

The company had not ensured that a safe working platform on the scaffold was maintained throughout the different phases of the project.

Access to and from the first lift working platform was unsafe as multiple openings had been made which could subsist for several weeks.

The openings were unguarded and therefore there was a significant risk of falling around 1.8 metres from the working platform.

It was also found site management did not monitor the site effectively and did not act on concerns when raised by their safety consultant.

Guidance from the health and safety watchdog states principal contractors must plan, manage, monitor and coordinate health and safety in the construction phase of a project.

HSE principal inspector Ross Carter said: “This tragic death could have been so easily avoided by implementing suitable site management to ensure that the scaffold was appropriately adapted by competent persons for the needs of the different sub-contractors.

“This case highlights that principal contractors should be aware that HSE will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action against those who fall below the required standards and do not plan, manage and monitor the construction phase effectively.”