Enforcement
A disconnected alarm, no spotter, and two companies fined $630,000 for the same death
A 25-year-old worker died in August 2023 at a North Blackburn construction site, crushed against an overhead steel frame while working in a boom lift. WorkSafe Victoria found that no spotter was being used and that the operator protection alarm fitted to the lift was disconnected. Three years later two companies have been convicted over it, on separate charges reflecting separate duties: the plumbing company that owned the lift, fined $400,000, and the hire equipment provider whose technician had serviced it that same morning, fined $230,000.
What the court heard
Ridge Commercial Pty Ltd and Licojo Pty Ltd were sentenced in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on 24 August 2026, having earlier pleaded guilty to charges under Victoria’s Occupational Health and Safety Act. Ridge Commercial was convicted and fined $400,000 on two charges of failing to provide or maintain a safe workplace. Licojo was convicted and fined $230,000 on a single charge of failing to ensure persons other than employees were not exposed to risk. Each was ordered to pay $5,525 in costs.
WorkSafe’s account of the incident is brief. The worker
died in August 2023 following an incident where he was crushed against an overhead steel
frame whilst working in a boom lift to install safety mesh for future roofing works.
The
investigation found no spotter was being used for the task and an operator protection alarm
(OPA) fitted to the boom lift was disconnected.
The detail that connects the two defendants is in the next line: the lift
was owned by Ridge Commercial and had been serviced by a Licojo technician on the morning of
the incident.
Two duties, not one duty shared
This is the part worth reading closely, because it is easy to see a joint prosecution as one failure split between two payers. It is not. WorkSafe sets out what each company separately could have done, and the two findings do not overlap.
| Company | Its role | What WorkSafe says was reasonably practicable | Penalty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ridge Commercial Pty Ltd | Plumbing company, owned the boom lift | A system requiring employees to conduct and document daily pre-start inspections and remove the lift from service on a fault, and to have arranged a licenced safety observer on site | $400,000, two charges |
| Licojo Pty Ltd | Hire equipment provider, serviced the lift that morning | To have identified the alarm was not operational during the service, and removed the lift from operation until it was rectified | $230,000, one charge |
Paraphrased from WorkSafe’s two "reasonably practicable" findings, quoted in full below. The role descriptions are the release’s.
In the regulator’s words, it was reasonably practicable for Ridge Commercial
to have a system in place that required employees to conduct and document daily pre-start
inspections of the boom lift and remove it from service where a safety malfunction or problem
was found; and to have arranged for a licenced safety observer to be on site.
For Licojo it
was reasonably practicable to have identified the OPA was not operational during the service
and to remove the boom lift from operation until the issue was rectified.
Set those beside each other and the shape of the case is clear. One duty was about systems: check the machine every day, write it down, and take it out of service when something is wrong. The other was about detection: you had the machine open on the morning of the incident and the alarm was not working. Either one, on its own, was a chance to find the disconnected alarm. Neither was taken.
The spotter is the third missing layer, and it is the one that did not depend on anybody noticing the alarm at all. A licenced safety observer on the ground is a control that works whether or not the machine’s own protection is functioning.
What the regulator said
WorkSafe’s Chief Health and Safety Officer, Sam Jenkin, put it in terms of the duty
rather than the device. As an employer, you must take all necessary steps to ensure your
workers and others affected by your actions are safe and without risks to health,
he said,
adding that This tragic death could have been avoided if both companies had adhered to the
relevant industry standards and guidance, and WorkSafe will continue to take strong action
against workplaces who fail to do so.
Note the phrase and others affected by your actions
. That is what carries the charge
against Licojo, which was prosecuted for failing to ensure persons other than employees
were not exposed to risk. The person who died was not its worker. It serviced the machine.
The guidance attached to it
WorkSafe published its standing advice with the sentencing. Employers using elevated work
platforms should Provide and maintain fit-for-purpose plant and systems of work that are safe
and without risks to health
, should not allow an employee to perform high-risk work
unless the employee holds an appropriate high-risk work licence
, and should
Identify any fall and overturning hazards and reduce the associated risks.
How we did this
Everything here comes from WorkSafe Victoria’s sentencing release of 24 August 2026, read directly on 30 August 2026. Quotations are verbatim; the table paraphrases the two "reasonably practicable" findings and says so, with both quoted in full in the text.
We have not obtained the court file. The charges, the pleas, the penalties and the facts are as WorkSafe states them following guilty pleas by both companies, and we have not independently verified them against the court record. We do not name the worker who died and have added no detail about him beyond the two facts the regulator published, his age and that he was working in the lift. No individual was charged in what WorkSafe published, and we name no individual.
The charges were laid under Victoria’s Occupational Health and Safety Act, which is the Act WorkSafe Victoria enforces and which we have written about when mapping Victoria’s two safety regulators. We have not examined how the same facts would be charged elsewhere, and the piece makes no comparison between jurisdictions.
The observation that either duty was a separate chance to find the fault is ours, drawn from the two findings set side by side. It is not a claim about what the court held.
Sources
- WorkSafe Victoria, Two companies fined $630,000 after worker’s death, published 24 August 2026: both companies, the court and sentencing date, the guilty pleas, the charges, the $400,000 and $230,000 penalties and the $5,525 costs each, the account of the incident, the finding on the spotter and the disconnected operator protection alarm, the ownership and servicing of the lift, both "reasonably practicable" findings in full, the quotations from Sam Jenkin, and the elevated work platform guidance.
- WorkSafe Victoria, Crackdown on falls risks in the solar sector, published 26 August 2026: read the same day for the regulator’s wider enforcement posture, which we covered separately.
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