British Telecommunications PLC has been fined after two of its employees were seriously injured in falls from height.

Teesside Crown Court heard how two British Telecommunications (BT) Open Reach engineers had been given a job at BT’s Darlington Automatic Telephone Exchange.

One of the engineers was installing a cable through a hole on the first floor along a ceiling level cable tray to the Main Distribution Frame (MDF) on the ground floor. In order to carry out this work he was working on a stepladder in amongst the lighting system. He felt a pain in his right arm and fell from the step ladder. He was taken to hospital with head and back injuries.

The accident was not properly investigated and later that day the work was allowed to continue. The second engineer continued with the work himself, from a different ladder. However he too fell to the ground and was taken to hospital with serious skull and back injuries.