A health and safety officer has been suspended after a video of him falling off a ladder appeared online.
Morrison employee Paul Cavanagh is filmed climbing up a ladder outside a Gateshead house to demonstrate the company’s new health and safety measures.
But both he and the company were left red-faced after the ladder slid sideways, leaving him sprawled on the ground.
Team Valley-based Morrison, who have contracts with social housing providers the Gateshead Housing Company, East Durham Homes and the Guinness Trust, say they have now suspended Mr Cavanagh for what they describe as "an isolated event".
The company, whose website claims that "health and safety is something of an obsession", say Mr Cavanagh is believed to have breached safety protocol by not anchoring the ladder to the wall.
The two-minute film shows Mr Cavanagh – who isn’t wearing a hard hat – climbing a ladder leaning against the side of a two-storey house.
He is attached to a "new health and safety device" designed to stop him falling if he slips while climbing.
He demonstrates this to colleagues by deliberately allowing himself to fall and dangle from the ladder.
But as he tries to climb back up – by now wearing a hard hat passed to him by a colleague – the ladder suddenly slides sideways and topples over, crashing over a garden fence.
Mr Cavanagh is left sprawled on the floor, but it is understood he was not seriously hurt in the fall.
At the end of the footage, a colleague is heard saying: "I think that’s proved the system doesn’t work."
A comment from Chris Morgan, director of health, safety, environment and quality for Morrison:
"We are dismayed by this isolated event, resulting from an individual deciding not to comply with our stringent H&S standards."
"This has led to suspension, pending investigation. We strive to ensure that everyone gets home safely, every day and are proud to have one of the lowest accident rates in sector.
Please be sure that we have responded appropriately to this incident and that we will always endeavour to operate to the highest safety standards."
A spokesperson for the company added: "Morrison takes the safety of our staff and the public extremely seriously and we are sorry that one of our employees has been found to be demonstrating the use of a ladder system incorrectly.
"As a result of this isolated incident we are now reinforcing the importance of safe systems for working at height across all of our teams, to help ensure this situation does not happen again.
We would like to reassure all of our stakeholders that our controls are robust and that this incident does not reflect our usual operations.
"Our commitment to health and safety is reflected by the fact that we have one of the lowest accident frequency rates of any company in the sector."
A spokesperson for Gateshead Housing Company said: "The Gateshead Housing Company takes the health and safety of its employees, contractors and customers very seriously.
"We have asked our contractors, Morrison plc, for an explanation of the circumstances that led to an amateur video of staff training being posted on a social media site.
We would like to reassure all customers that our contractors will continue to carry out thousands of repairs a week for us in a safe and timely manner."
