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Andrew Layley, 69, fell from a roof on 8^th April 2023 while helping Raffaele Vigliotti, 68, with roof work as part of an extension to a domestic property Reading. He sustained serious head injuries and died in hospital several weeks later.

An investigation by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) found that Vigliotti, who was trading as Absolute Building Solutions, had failed to put in place suitable measures to protect workers while they were working at height. The measures that were used were inadequate to either prevent or control a fall, or to mitigate the consequence of a fall.

Raffaele Vigliotti of The Hedges, Bath Road, Padworth  pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.  At Reading Crown Court on 13^th October 2025 he was given an eight-month custodial sentence, suspended for 18 months.  He was also ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work within the next 18 months and to pay a victim surcharge.

HSE inspector Nicola Pinckney said: “Every year, a significant proportion of incidents, many of them serious and sometimes fatal, occur as a result of unsuitable or absent measures to protect workers from falls from height. 

“This was a wholly avoidable incident, and if consideration had been given to the well-known risks of working at height, and suitable, readily available controls been put in place, this incident could have been avoided.

“Due to Vigliotti’s failures, a family has been left without a much loved husband and dad.

“The penalty imposed on Mr Vigliotti will hopefully serve to highlight to others the importance of taking this risk seriously and ensuring they protect their workers from this risk.”

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