Two companies fined and site manager given suspended sentence over asbestos disturbance

Birmingham Magistrates' Court sentenced two companies and an individual on 6 March 2026 following a large-scale asbestos disturbance at a demolition site in Cannock.

What happened

An asbestos management survey had already identified asbestos-containing materials at the site. Demolition proceeded anyway. An unlicensed company and an individual were appointed to carry out asbestos clearance in place of a licensed contractor.

The outcome

Sohan Group Limited was fined £74,900 with £3,658.14 costs and a £2,000 surcharge, having breached regulation 5(4) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015.

Maize Metals Limited was fined £13,400 with £1,359.51 costs and a £2,000 surcharge, under regulation 15(2) of the same Regulations.

Ali Raza Baig received 26 weeks' imprisonment suspended for two years, an electronically monitored curfew from 7pm to 7am for three months, a five-year director disqualification and £5,899 costs with a £154 surcharge. He was prosecuted under regulation 15(2) by virtue of section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 — the provision that reaches individual officers where an offence is committed with their consent, connivance or neglect.

What duty holders should take from it

The survey is not the control measure. This site had the information it needed and the disturbance happened regardless, which is the failure mode that a document-led approach to asbestos management produces: a survey on file, and no working link between what it says and what happens on site.

Section 37 is the part worth dwelling on. A five-year disqualification and a suspended custodial sentence reflect that individual accountability is available where a company's failure traces to a named person's decisions, and it is used.