Sole trader fined $10,000 after worker’s fatal three-metre fall
21 Aug 2025•BlueSafe Team•Source: WorkSafe VIC
A carpenter trading as Big Basa Constructions has been sentenced without conviction after a 23-year-old worker died following a fall through an unguarded stair void.
The 29-year-old sole trader pleaded guilty in the Melbourne County Court to one charge of failing to ensure a workplace under his management and control was safe and without risks to health. He was ordered to perform 100 hours of community work and fined $10,000.
The court heard the carpenter had engaged the worker to help at a site where he was contracted to build frames and erect roof trusses for multi-storey townhouses. In September 2022, the worker was carrying steel lengths on the first floor when he fell through an open stair void onto concrete three metres below.
The worker sustained serious head injuries and later died in hospital. WorkSafe’s investigation found that stair voids in the units being built had no guardrails, and the ladder in use when the incident occurred did not extend above the first-floor level.
Installing perimeter guardrails around the stair voids was a reasonably practicable way for the carpenter to eliminate or reduce the risk of death or serious injury from a fall. Another measure was using a ladder extending at least 90 centimetres above the first floor, securely fastened at both the top and bottom.
WorkSafe Chief Health and Safety Officer Sam Jenkin said continuing deaths and life-changing injuries from falls at height were unacceptable. “It’s both shocking and heartbreaking to see a young worker lose his life after a workplace fall that could and should have been prevented,” Mr Jenkin said.
“No one ever thinks an incident like this will happen at their workplace and so, far too often, duty holders ignore well-known and relatively simple measures to control hazards – leading to tragedy.”
Pearl Construction Group Pty Ltd, the site’s principal contractor, also faces charges relating to the incident. It is scheduled to appear at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on 8 December 2025.
WorkSafe’s release advises employers to prevent falls from height by implementing the highest possible measures within the five-level hierarchy of controls.
How Blue Safe can help: Our free SWMS tool can help you prepare a safe work method statement for high-risk construction work involving falls from height, with task-specific hazards and controls. Create a free SWMS