TWO Herefordshire companies have been ordered to pay more than £200,000 in court fines and costs after health and safety inspectors found life-threatening problems with scaffolding.

Cider-making firm Universal Beverages Ltd, which is owned by Heineken, was found guilty by a jury of exposing non-employees to risks to their safety at Worcester Crown Court today during a major construction project at its Ledbury site in 2009.

Central Roofing, trading as Erecta Scaffold, which had set up the scaffolding, had previously pleaded guilty to exposing non-employees to risks to their safety and of causing an employee to perform a safety inspection when he was not qualified to do so.

The court heard there were "significant" issues with the scaffolding, including loose boards and gaps "big enough for a man to fall through", which only came to light after the death of 51-year-old welder Gordon Docherty on October 1, 2009 - though prosecutors decided his death was not directly caused by the faulty structure.

Judge Robert Juckes QC ordered Central Roofing to pay a £50,000 fine plus £18,000 court costs, while UBL was ordered to pay an £85,000 fine and £50,000 costs.

"Central Roofing should have been doing their jobs, but if UBL had fully understood its role as principle contractor these problems would ha've been put right," he said.

"I fine both defendants because they did fall far short of the appropriate standard.

"The matter was the scaffolding, raising to something like 30metres. This was extremely high and if not properly maintained, the likelihood of death or serious injury would have been obviously foreseeable."

Prosecutor Adam Farrer, on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), had told the court that workers had been setting up the company's cider-making operation, including five large fermentation tanks.

He said inspections for the scaffolding at the company's site between July 24 and October 1 2009 had often fallen outside the seven-day limit, in one case reaching a month between signatures on the Scaff-Tag, which records safety inspections.

And one inspection on October 1 was carried out by an unqualified member of staff from sub-contractors Central Roofing, the court heard.

Jonathan Boden did a short, 15-minute inspection from ground-level, rather than the usual full inspection which lasts around 90 minutes, just hours before Mr Docherty fell.

A full HSE inspection was carried out the following day, when a series of faults and problems were spotted.

The companies will have until September 9 to pay the bill.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Paul Humphries said: "As principle contractor on this building project, Universal Beverages was responsible for ensuring that the scaffolding was checked every seven days to ensure it was safe and that workers were not exposed to risk.

"As the sub-contractor on the site, Central Roofing Services was responsible for ensuring that the inspection was carried out weekly by a competent person, which they failed to do.

"Companies working on construction projects have a duty to monitor the practices of the sub-contractors they engage, while sub-contrators need to ensure their employees are competent to undertake the work they have been engaged to do."