“It’s justice for my Dad,” a pensioner's daughter said as a York building company was found guilty of charges related to his death.

Kenneth Armitage, 81, fell through a hole in the floor of his first-floor bathroom made by an employee of Cooper and Westgate, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Joiner Matthew Hobson, then 19, didn’t put proper safety barriers round the hole when he left it for the weekend in the house in Whitestone Drive off Huntington Road, York.

The court heard the bathroom had the only toilet in the house.

Cooper and Westgate, of Heworth, denied failure to ensure Mr Armitage's safety and that of other members of the public and failure to ensure the safety of its employees including Mr Hobson but was unanimously convicted by the jury on both charges after an eight-day trial.

“I’m overwhelmed. I'm over the moon,” said Mr Armitage's daughter Susan after the verdicts. “It’s justice for my Dad. It’s been a long time getting here – five years.”

She had sat through the entire trial.

She and her husband found Mr Armitage's body lying on his kitchen floor beneath his bathroom when they visited him on Saturday February 9, 2019. 

His death prompted an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive which culminated in the trial.

The company’s representative in court, who refused to give a name, said it was disappointed by the verdict.

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He said Mr Armitage’s death was “desperately sad and shouldn’t have happened” and hoped the pensioner’s family would now find closure.

Judge Ray Singh said it was a “very, very tragic case” and also as an “unusual and complicated case”. He adjourned sentence until September 17.

He ordered the company to provide him with its financial accounts and other information and read a victim personal statement about how Mr Armitage's death has affected his family.

Cooper and Westgate was carrying out a conversion of Mr Armitage’s bathroom into a wet room after he had difficulties getting in and out of his bath.

Mr Hobson, who had recently qualified as a joiner after a three-year apprenticeship at the company, created the hole by removing floorboards when carrying out preparatory work on Friday, February 8, 2019.

He was to have been joined by a more experienced colleague to install the shower tray the following Monday. The kitchen ceiling immediately below the bathroom was plasterboard.

Leeds Crown Court heard that the company, which was formed in 1997 by two builders with 50 years’ experience between them, did not have a specific risk assessment in place for the job.

Its generic risk assessment did not include the risk of falls that could be caused by work in first-floor bathrooms.

It employed about 20 people of different trades and in 2019 was regularly carrying out bathroom conversions into wet rooms, including conversions funded by City of York Council grants. The company was on the council’s list of approved contractors for the conversions.