A BUILDING company was fined £7,000 by magistrates yesterday after a joiner working for them broke his back in a fall.

Kevin Dowson, 39, from Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, fell 8ft on to a concrete floor while working on a housing development in Ripon in June 2003.

He had been putting floorboards into the first floor of a house when he fell between the wooden joists. He died six months after the accident from pneumonia. His death was unrelated to the fall.

He was employed through an agency for Graves Construction Limited, of Wigginton, York, when the accident took place.

Yesterday, representatives from the company appeared at Harrogate Magistrates' Court. The company was charged with failing to provide a safe working environment and two counts of failing to notify the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) of the accident. David Dean, for the HSE, said a trestle scaffold had been set up beneath Mr Dowson, but it had not been enough to stop his fall.

He said the accident had not been reported to the HSE and that officials only found out about it when Mr Dowson started civil proceedings against the company.

Simon Hilton, in mitigation, said the HSE had not been informed because the employee responsible believed it was up to the agency.

Mr Hilton said: "You are dealing with offences which were not committed deliberately or with an intention to flout the law or with an intention to hinder the HSE investigation. The offences were committed inadvertently or through incompetence."

He said that the day after Mr Dowson's fall, the company brought in new safety measures at the site.

Magistrates fined the company £7,000 and ordered it to pay costs of £1,922.