A BUILDER who admitted safety failures that led to a toddler’s skull being crushed by a plank has been ordered to pay thousands of pounds.

Grzegorz Glowacki was responsible for replacing floor timbers at a loft conversion in Preston Street, Brighton.

He could not get the timbers up the stairs, so with a partner he decided to lift them using a pulley system on the scaffolding outside.

But Glowacki did so without adequately checking the risks to either himself or the public.

The area was not cordoned off, and a plank became loose and struck a three-year-old girl on the head as she sat in a buggy being pushed by her mum.

She was rushed to hospital, where her parents were told that she was not expected to survive.

Her father said: “It was constant turmoil, seeing her like that ripped out my soul.”

At Brighton Magistrates’ Court, 40-year-old Glowacki appeared for sentencing for breaching health and safety rules for the incident in July last year.

Judge Tessa Szagun said he had “cut corners” for his own benefit, and said: “This was a tragedy waiting to unfold.”

She said it was serious enough to justify a six-month prison sentence, but agreed it should be suspended because of his early guilty plea and his “palpable remorse”.

Instead Glowacki, of Rugby Road, Brighton, was ordered to pay £25,000 to the Health and Safety Executive and nearly £6,000 for the cost of the prosecution.

Briony Clarke, prosecuting for the Health and Safety Executive, said witnesses in Preston Street thought the lifting operation “did not look right”.

There were no high-viz jackets or hard hats, and the planks were lifted by the pulley “near vertical”.

She said Glowacki had made an on the spot decision to use the pulley and said it was “obviously unsafe”.

The girl had been on her way to the paddling pool at the seafront when she was struck.

She was taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital where she underwent emergency brain surgery, with part of her skull removed.

When it was time to transfer her to a specialist hospital in Southampton, her parents were given grim forecasts.

A consultant took them aside and told them it was unlikely she would survive the journey there.

Her father said: “We were in each others arms crying, asking if this was really happening. Doctors and nurses spoke to us, and it was bad news after bad news. Every time we went into another room it got worse.

“We were most likely going home that day, never seeing our daughter again. It was constant turmoil, but her amazing strength and will to recover was miraculous.”

Ms Clarke said Glowacki’s main expertise is decorating, and he did not have any formal safety training for the lifting operation.

He had not carried out an adequate risk assessment.

Previously, John Williams, defending Glowacki, said his client was “deeply sorry” and offered an apology to the girl and her family.

Glowacki has lived in Brighton since moving from Poland 19 years ago, and works as a decorator and builder on small projects.

Mr Williams said Glowacki has no previous convictions, and no previous safety breaches, and his customers described him as “honest and conscientious”.

Judge Szagun, sentencing, said Glowacki had put others at risk of death and had “devastated the family” of the girl.

She said: “This was a tragedy waiting to unfold. A person exercising reasonable care would not have approached this operation in this manner.

“The operation was adopted in haste, it was no doubt done to avoid delay and additional costs.

“Witnesses said it did not look right. Their immediate reaction was to identify what they saw as an obvious risk, describing the operation as amateur.”

The district judge ordered Glowacki to complete 220 hours of unpaid work on top of the suspended sentence.

Interim insurance payments for the girl have already run into the tens of thousands of pounds.

Now aged four, she continues to make a recovery.