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Prowash employee Joshua Bowles had only been on the job for two months and was yet to receive safety training on harness use when he fell 6m from a roof he was cleaning with his boss.

The 37-year-old father of five, who was found lying face down on the ground by a member of the public, spent the next six months in hospital, recovering from a traumatic brain injury and multiple fractures to his head and body.

During that time he missed significant milestones and struggled with the impact on his family.

“I hate myself for getting into this mess and putting this burden on my family,” he said in a statement that was read out on his behalf as the company he worked for was sentenced in court today.

Prowash Wellington was fined more than $120,000 in penalties in the Wellington District Court after admitting to a breach of the health and safety act.

The charge, brought by WorkSafe, relates to work that was carried out on a commercial building in Taranaki St, Wellington.

The company was engaged to clean the new building, which also involved testing a cleaning product to determine its effectiveness.

According to the summary of facts, Bowles only began working for the company in February 2023. He’d had no previous building, construction, or roofing work experience.

Bowles had not worked at height before working for Prowash and had not received formal training on harness use or roof anchors.

He was due to attend a course on height training a fortnight after the accident.

On April 19, Bowles and his boss, a Prowash director, arrived at the building. There was intermittent rain in the city that morning.

The day before, Prowash had been given the all-clear to access the site, having been told it was safe and everything was in place for the pair to do their work.

They accessed scaffolding already on site, and while there was a barrier across the entrance didn’t notice the unsafe scaffold tag that was fixed to the scaffolding.

The pair climbed under the barrier and accessed the roof.

They planned to work only in the area of edge protection scaffolding, which was on a section of the roof. Bowles was told not to go outside the area.

They weren’t wearing harnesses or hard hats and set to work applying the product to the roof and cleaning off surface rust.

Bowles was also tasked with bringing equipment, such as hard hats, up the scaffolding and on to the roof while his boss continued to clean the roof.

According to the summary, Bowles was told to keep within the edge-protection area of the scaffolding.

His boss kept an eye on him most of the time he was on the roof. Bowles came and went from the roof, on a couple of occasions leaving to visit a supermarket across the road.

But his boss wasn’t aware he was near the edge of the roof and last saw him 10-15 minutes before the incident.

At noon, Bowles fell from the roof on to the asphalt below. He was found by a member of the public lying face down in the Hopper St service lane.

This man alerted the Prowash director, who immediately went to Bowles’ aid.

Two workers from a nearby shop were alerted to the incident. All three held umbrellas over Bowles to stop him from getting wet.

Bowles was taken by ambulance to Wellington Hospital and admitted to the intensive care unit.

He suffered multiple significant injuries, including a traumatic brain injury, clavicle fractures, extensive skull and facial bone fractures, dental injury, rib fractures, and neck and femur fractures.

During the next six months he was an inpatient at four different hospitals, including the Burwood Spinal Unit in Christchurch.

‘I hate myself for getting into this mess’

His victim impact statement, which was read to the court, made clear how the accident had affected his life.

He told how he’d turned down a job at KiwiRail in order to take the job at Prowash because it offered more time with his family.

But as a result of the accident, he’d been financially disadvantaged.

Before the accident he was taking home about $800 a week, with ACC that had reduced to $587 a week, leaving a shortfall of $265.

His extended stay in hospital left him feeling homesick while he was away from his family. He missed important milestones, including one child starting school and the other kindergarten.

Two days after the incident his daughter underwent planned surgery and he couldn’t be there.

Before the incident he was a hands-on dad, doing the school run, playing with them and taking them for walks. He also enjoyed the outdoors, played sport, went four-wheel driving, hunting and on bush walks.

He now suffers from ongoing fatigue and pain and can only stand for 20 minutes at a time, relying on walking aids for short distances or a wheelchair for longer trips.

Emotionally, he was struggling and he lacked energy. He waited for the time to go to bed so the day could be over.

He’s struggled to find work because his past experience involved physical work and he requires a sedentary job.

No health and safety policies

WorkSafe’s lawyer Karina Sagaga told the court Prowash had no health and safety policies and risk control processes.

On the day, Prowash didn’t undertake a risk assessment, instead relying on the partial scaffolding around the building. Yet the risks were obvious, there was an inexperienced worker on a new iron roof in the rain who was testing a new cleaning product.

She said while there were no aggravating factors, she took issue with Prowash’s request for a discount for a prior good health and safety record.

Photos on the company’s website showed workers cleaning roofs without harnesses and, therefore, no discount was warranted, she said.

Thomas Cunningham, who represented Prowash, said the company sincerely regretted the matters referred to in the victim impact statement.

Cunningham said Bowles had been told to stay within the parameters of the scaffolding on the day of the incident.

But Prowash didn’t oppose reparation and had been open to restorative justice, but that didn’t occur.

In sentencing, Judge Tania Warburton took into account the height of the roof, which resulted in serious injuries.

She said the hazard of working on a new roof in wet conditions was obvious and should have been identified by Prowash, particularly given Bowles’ inexperience.

But she also said there was some edge protection in place and instructions to stay in that area.

Mitigating factors included the defendant’s co-operation with the WorkSafe investigation, the fact it had agreed to pay reparation and there had been an early guilty plea.

But she declined to impose a discount for a good health and safety record, given the company’s website showed workers without harnesses and the fact the company had only been in business a year before the incident.

She ordered Prowash to pay reparation of $60,000, $17,456 for consequential loss and a fine of $40,000, to be paid in two instalments of $20,000 over the next two years, as well as $8500 in WorkSafe’s costs.

Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.