A NORTH Yorkshire company faces a £23,408 court bill for a health and safety breach that left its employee in hospital with life-changing injuries.

Peter Bettison, 54, suffered a fractured skull, punctured lung, broken collar bone, ribs, hand and pelvis and chipped bones in his spine and hip, as well as a head wound that needed 13 staples when he fell seven metres through a rooflight in November 2011.

He spent 22 days in hospital, was off work for eight months and is still suffering from the after ffects.

Mr Bettison was installing solar panels with a colleague on an Ilkley farm building roof for Duncan Plumbing, Heating and Electrics Ltd of Tockwith when he fell, Bradford magistrates heard.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation discovered that even though the company had identified the presence of the rooflight when carrying out two site surveys, it had failed to take any action to protect the workers from falling through the rooflights.

The company, of Rudgate Business Park, pleaded guilty to a health and safety breach and was fined the maximum fine available to magistrates of £20,000 and ordered to pay £3,408 prosecution costs to the HSE.

Mr Bettison, of Leeds, said: “The impact of the fall has been felt not just by me, but by my entire family.”

He sometimes gets dizzy, has lost his strength, cannot drive for long distances and becomes tired quickly.