The spotlight on electronic gate safety is once again on full beam this week following the prosecution of a Surrey firm after a child sustained multiple fractures to her pelvis and internal injuries when a 5m-long gate fell on her.
The eight-year-old was leaving an evening gymnastics class at her 1700-pupil school in Streatham, south London, when the manual sliding gate became disengaged from its rollers and crushed her.
Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that the steel gate was designed, manufactured and installed by Surrey-based Metalart Fabrication. The 1.7 metre-high gate was installed in February 2018 after a paper delivery lorry damaged a previous, two-leaf swing gate.
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigator Sarah Whittle said the mechanism in place to prevent the sliding gate from overrunning and falling over as it was opened (a small stop welded to its guiding rail) was ‘an accident waiting to happen’.
At the time of the May 2018 incident, the gate was opened ‘robustly’, and its momentum caused it to ‘ride over’ the stop. With nothing to hold it in position, it fell on the girl.
Metalart Fabrication admitted breaching section 6(1)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work Act, which puts a duty of any person who designs, manufactures, imports or supplies any article for use at work or any article of fairground equipment to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the article is so designed and constructed that it will be safe and without risks to health at all times when it is being set, used, cleaned or maintained by a person at work.
The company was fined £19,327, including full costs of £1,147 and a victim surcharge of £180.
Premier Security & Fire Ltd are specialists in security gates for schools, colleges and Academies. Our gates come in a wide range of designs with most gates being bespoke and made to measure.
Gates are available for all educational requirements, from manually operated gates for school playing fields, through to fully automated entrance systems.
School names and logos can be added to any of our gates.
Premier Security & Fire are currently testing an LPS1175 SR4 security gate which will reach counter-terrorism standard
Premier is a proud member of the Door Hardware Federation (DHF) safety organisation and all of our automatic gates comply with all relevant Health and Safety requirements and are fully commissioned and force tested upon completion, with all relevant documentation.
If you need advice or a safety test carried out on your gates systems, contact Premier on 0208 559 8295.
