Project supervisor failed health and safety duties

A project supervisor who had been cleared of failing to coordinate the implementation of health and safety regulations was given a suspended jail term on appeal.

Marco Putzulu Caruana, who was the project supervisor on a construction site in St Paul's Bay, had been acquitted by the Magistrates' Court last May of failing to coordinate health and safety on site on the day of an accident that occurred on March 23, 2009.

His job entailed contacting the contractors and workers and making sure the regulations were implemented.

The Attorney General appealed the judgment, saying the Magistrates' Court had applied the law incorrectly and that, as project supervisor, Mr Caruana had not coordinated safety measures with everyone on site.

The fact that he had sent e-mails to the works manager advising what should be done was not enough. He should have been on site to assure that the measures were carried out, the Attorney General argued.

He added that scaffolding on site was not up to scratch and had not been properly erected.

Mr Justice Michael Mallia, sitting in the Criminal Court of Appeal, heard that the accident happened had been investigated by the Health and Safety Department, which found a number of problems.

This was not the first time the department had carried out inspections at the site. Mr Caruana had on those occasions e-mailed works manager Tyron Borg about the problems asking him to rectify them.

The defence had argued that the e-mails were enough to clear Mr Caruana. But the judge ruled that this was not the correct interpretation of the word coordination that was used to describe Mr Caruana's duty at law.

As project manager, Mr Caruana should have been on site and seeing to it that his recommendations were carried out and everything went according to plan.

Mr Caruana seemed to be qualified in health and safety and should have known what his responsibilities were and what action he should have taken, the judge said.

Using e-mails to inform Mr Borg was not enough. In other circumstances, this might have been appropriate but not on a construction site, especially where he was project manager, Mr Justice Mallia added.

After reconsidering all the evidence, the judge revoked the original judgment and found Mr Caruana guilty as charged, handing down a three-month jail term suspended for two years.