Health and safety chief sues beauty giant for millions after horror warehouse fall

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A health and safety chief for an e-commerce company is suing his employers for millions after he fell three storeys from a balcony at work.

But his bosses say the accident was his fault, saying he was “precariously” leaning out to take a photo on his phone at the time.

Glyn Caddick, the chief operating officer and head of health and safety for online cosmetics company Beauty Bay, plummeted to the floor of a warehouse in Salford in February 2022.

He had tumbled over safety bars and mesh on a mezzanine floor three storeys up.

The 54-year-old suffered multiple life-changing injuries and spent nine months in hospital.

He is now suing Beauty Bay Ltd, along with warehouse owners Gxo Logistics Uk Limited, for “millions of pounds in damages”.

He claims that the railing guarding the balcony was not high enough and breached health and safety regulations.

But the two companies deny liability, saying that Mr Caddick was himself responsible for health and safety matters in the warehouse and claiming he caused his own injuries by leaning out over the railing to take a photo on his phone and falling “head first”.

Ben Bradley KC, for Mr Caddick, told the High Court in London in written submissions that Beauty Bay had been operating out of a leased warehouse in Centenary Park, Coronet Way, Salford, when the accident happened.

Mr Caddick had been overseeing a move by the company to new premises. The warehouse had been mainly cleared when he made a final round, inspecting areas including a four-storey mezzanine area housing shelving where stock had been stored.

Mr Caddick has no “direct recollection” of what happened next, the barrister said.

“CCTV at the time captured Mr Caddick first moving around the ground floor are of the warehouse, taking photographic evidence of the fact that all stock had been taken,” he said.

“He is then seen making his way up to the mezzanine floors of the warehouse.

“At the time of the accident, he was checking an area of racking/shelving close to a guard rail on the edge of the mezzanine structure.

“It is likely that … he stood on the bottom shelf of the racking so as to enable him to check that the top shelves had been cleared of stock and/or items; he then lost balance and fell over the guard rail.

“As he was no longer standing at floor level, the guard rail was unable to prevent him from falling, because it was insufficiently high to do so.

”He fell the distance of three floors to ground level. He suffered significant injuries as a result.

“The guard rail had been put in place to prevent individuals falling from height. The guard rail was 1.2m high, mesh above the guard-rail extended to 1.6m high.”

He said Mr Caddick is alleging negligence or a breach of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 because the work he did was not “properly planned, appropriately supervised and carried out in a manner as safe as was practicable”.

He said: “No reasonable consideration was given to the difficulties in accessing the top shelf of the racking to ensure that all stock had been removed.

“No reasonable consideration was given to the fact that a person might climb up on to the racking and was exposed to the risk of falling.”

He said Mr Caddick’s bosses had “failed to communicate to him that he should not stand or climb on the racking shelves under any circumstances”.

“The claimant stood on a shelf and fell over a metal railing,” he told High Court judge, Master Stephen Byass, at a pre-trial hearing, adding that an earlier health and safety report had “foreseen the risk of individuals standing on the shelf” but that no steps had been taken to make the area safe in those circumstances.

“This was an e-commerce warehouse … a large commercial operation,” he continued.

“The first defendant is in the business of selling cosmetics. By analogy, this is similar to an Amazon warehouse with a large amount of staff on minimum wage at any given time at work on site.

”The barriers must have been inadequate, as they didn’t arrest the fall.

“It’s frankly amazing that the claimant survived at all. He suffered life-changing injuries and consequently this is plainly a claim of seven figure value on a full liability basis … a very high value claim where much turns on the evidence.”

“Liability is firmly in dispute,” he continued, adding that the way in which the accident happened is hotly contested and is an issue “on which millions of pounds in damages will likely turn”.

Noel Dilworth, representing Beauty Bay at the hearing, told the judge: “There is an issue about the feasibility of the claimant’s account of how he actually fell and who was responsible for the rails.

“There is a dispute of fact as to the mechanism of his fall. The claimant himself has no recollection of the accident.

“The guardrail was properly positioned and would have prevented a fall had the claimant not placed himself in such a precarious position.”

In its written defence to the claim, the company says Mr Caddick himself was the director with “overall responsibility for health and safety”.

“He was, himself, the only controlling influence in an accident that was nothing to do with the usual operation of either business,” says its leading lawyer, James Rowley KC.

Turning to the alleged photo-taking incident, he said that an image found on his phone seemed to have been taken just before the moment he fell, and showed he put himself in danger.

“He evidently twisted round and leant out with the camera above and well beyond the line of the mesh in order to photograph the scene below,” he says.

“The claimant raised his centre of gravity above the level of the upper guard rail, which was properly positioned at 1.2m and in perfect condition, and leant out significantly, thereby defeating the obvious purpose of the guard rail.

“[He] was probably holding his camera phone in both hands and looking through the viewer, overbalanced and fell head first over the guard rail.

“The claimant’s camera phone was found on the floor of the warehouse close to him after the fall…he was not checking an area of racking/shelving, but taking a photograph.

“It is admitted the claimant lost balance, but that was because he had placed himself in a precarious position.”

Angus Withington KC, in the defence of warehouse owners Gxo Logistics Uk Limited, claims that Mr Caddick had in fact climbed high up on the shelving and put a foot on the top of the guardrail before falling.

“The CCTV shows the claimant falling in a vertical position, feet first and without any apparent rotational movement of his body,” he says.

“It is inherently unlikely in the circumstances that the claimant could have fallen over the guardrail from a position where his feet were significantly below the level of the top guardrail.

“It is therefore more likely that the claimant was standing on the top guardrail before he fell from the level of the third mezzanine floor or from a position at or above the height of the top guardrail.

“There is no duty to protect any individual in respect of a danger which is entirely obvious to a reasonable person and/or in respect of the ordinary risks of an action which they positively elect to undertake.”

After a short hearing, the judge gave permission for an engineering expert to be recruited for trial to investigate the set up of the railing and shelves and also “the mechanics of the body in flight” to draw conclusions about how the fall occurred.

He said the expert “might well be able to address what the claimant would have been doing” and what position he was in when he started to fall.

“What is most relevant is what he was doing and his interplay with the railing and to what extent that was something which could have been foreseen and was in breach of the relevant standards.”

Speaking after the hearing, Mr Caddick described the impact of the accident, saying: “Whilst I was in hospital recovering, my family were told that if I woke up, I would not be able to dress and feed myself or speak.

“My wife never gave up on me, even when doctors wanted to withdraw care. After nine months in hospital, including extensive rehabilitation and adaptations to the house, I finally came home.

“Now I am able to walk short distances and have given up my wheelchair. I have problems with my balance and pains in feet, legs and hip areas. I grin and bear it, I am not failing every time, things could be worse. I struggle with my head and bad neuro fatigue which limits me and activities and, often, I end up going to bed.

“But I’m still here, and I am at home with my family.”

Beauty Bay Ltd had a turnover of £78m in the year ending 2024, according to its last published accounts.

The case will return to court for a full trial of Mr Caddick’s claim at a later date.