THE death of a 33-year-old workman has cost a company £25,000 after it admitted health and safety lapses.

Miguel Fernandes died when he received a 33,000-volt electric shock from overhead power lines while he was cutting a tall hedge on the site of RDJ Colloids Ltd, in Old Hay, Brenchley, near Tunbridge Wells.

A judge at Maidstone Crown Court fined the company £17,500 and ordered it to pay £7,500 costs after it admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act by failing to ensure Mr Fernandez and factory foreman Ted Winter, who he was helping, were not exposed to risks to their health and safety.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Inspector David Fussell said the fatal injuries Mr Fernandes suffered "were easily preventable."

On April 15, 2004, the father-of-one who lived in St Andrews Road, Paddock Wood, had stayed behind after work to earn some extra money by helping Mr Winter cut the leylandii hedge.

It was the third day the pair had been working on the job, with Mr Winter using an un-insulated chainsaw on the vegetation and Mr Fernandes clearing the cuttings with an un-insulated long-arm grab.

The men had borrowed a scissor lift from RDJ Colloids to raise themselves to the top of the 6.6 metre high, 32-metre long hedge. This was not insulated and should not have been operated within 10 feet of power lines.

It not known whether Mr Fernandes touched the cable that killed him, or if electricity had "flashed over" from it while he worked close by.

Mr Winter heard his workmate groan, and looked over to see him lying in the hedge, unconscious. Mr Fernandes was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital.

The HSE concluded RDJ Colloids Ltd failed to supervise their employees, who were acting as independent contractors for the hedge-cutting job, failed to ensure that the men were competent to do the work, failed to carry out any risk assessments and did not provide any information or supervision to its contractors.

It added that EDF Energy, who owned the cables, employed contractors Brockwells Forestry Ltd to cut vegetation back from its power lines safely.

David Platt, on behalf of the company, said the hedge had been cut in a similar way for many years without mishap, adding that Brockwells and EDF had never told the company they would cut the hedge for free, nor warned that the work should be done by specialists.

Since the accident, the company had completely overhauled its health and safety procedures.

In a statement released following court case the HSE said: "This was an accident waiting to happen. The fatal injuries to Mr Fernandes were easily preventable and the accident came about through a combination of events, which include a failure to heed warnings given, reliance on a fatally flawed system of work and the complete lack of control over contractors."