TWO construction company bosses have been jailed after a worker fell two storeys to his death.

Graham Tester, 60, died when he fell from height at a building site at the former Lansdowne Place Hotel in Lansdowne Place, Hove, in July 2018 after a ladder was not secured properly.

Mr Tester, of Lewes, was described in court by his family as a “real people pleaser”.

Steven Wenham, 48, of Charlotte Street, Brighton, was found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter and his company Total Contractors Ltd was convicted of breaking two health and safety laws over the accident at an earlier hearing.

Wenham was jailed for five years for gross negligence manslaughter at Lewes Crown Court.

The ladder Mr Tester was using to take 40kg rolls of felt on to a flat roof was found to have only been secured with two nails hammered into a timber frame on either side.

Wenham also received prison sentences of 18 months each for two counts of breaching health and safety laws, to run concurrently.

Total Contractors Ltd, the company for which he was a director of when the accident happened, was fined £190,000 and ordered to pay costs of £30,000.

The court was told that Wenham no longer works for the company, and that he had tried to take his own life after the accident.

He sat in the dock with his head in his hands as sentence was passed by the Honourable Mr Justice Mark Wall.

The site where Graham Tester fell to his death

Another building firm boss, John Spiller, 52, of Fishergate Close, Portslade, who runs roofing company Southern Asphalt Ltd, had been found not guilty of manslaughter at an earlier hearing, but was convicted of a health and safety charge for failing to properly safeguard against serious injury of death from a fall from height

He was jailed for 15 months. Judge Wall told him that he had to consider imposing a suspended sentence but had decided against it due to the lack of care he took for the work of Mr Tester on the day of the accident.

Southern Asphalt was fined £120,000 and ordered to pay costs of £20,000.

Allan Compton QC said there was “high culpability” on the part of both company bosses, with each showing a “flagrant disregard for the law”.

Mr Tester was working as a roofer sub-contracted by Southern Asphalt when he fell two storeys from a ladder to his death.

An inspection of the site from the Health and Safety Executive found multiple safety failings including no scaffolding or barriers to protect those working at a height.

David Whittaker QC, defending Wenham, said the “dangerous state of affairs that led to the death of Mr Tester” were an “aberration”.

He added: “There has been a very real and profound effect on him [following the death of Mr Tester].”

James Buchanan, representing Spiller, told the court his client “agonises over his failings daily”, adding he continues to show “genuine remorse”.

READ MORE: Honour for support worker who helped track down man who defecated outside family home

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