The HSE has prosecuted a manufacturing firm and one of its directors after two agency workers in their teens fell 4.5 metres from a poorly designed lifting platform.
Eighteen-year-old Leon Payne broke his back and another worker, also 18, broke both of his heels in the incident, which happened in April 2009 at Storetec’s depot in Tibshelf, Derbyshire.
Eighteen-year-old Leon Payne broke his back and another worker, also 18, broke both of his heels in the incident, which happened in April 2009 at Storetec’s depot in Tibshelf, Derbyshire.
The workers fell while loading scrapped supermarket trolleys into a skip from a makeshift platform fitted to a forklift truck.
As the platform was bringing the two workers back to the ground, it became caught and was dragged off the truck's forks. Both the workers and the platform fell to the ground.
Derby Crown Court heard that in designing the platform, Storetec director, Brian Crossan, had not followed proper standards, which meant the fork extensions did not fit properly into the platform and the plate did not have any chains securing it to the truck.“The company should have considered if it was necessary to use a platform like this in the first place,” said HSE inspector Fiona Coffey, “and if it was, used something that was legal and safe - this arrangement clearly was not.”
Storetec — which makes supermarket trolley protection systems, smoking and bike shelters, and shelving systems — admitted failing to ensure agency workers’ safety, in breach of Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
Crossan pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 5(1) of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations, which covers equipment used for lifting people.
At Derby Crown Court last week (15 June), the judge fined Storetec £22,000 with £12,134 in costs, and Crossan £3500 plus costs of £7866.
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