Risk, Health and Safety Information

Hugo Boss fined £1.2m for health and safety breaches

Hugo Boss has been fined £1.2m after a four-year-old boy died at one its shops.

Austen Healey was killed by an 18-stone (114kg) changing room mirror, which fell on him at the Hugo Boss outlet in Bicester Village in 2013.  He was rushed to the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, where he underwent an emergency operation to relieve pressure on his brain but died four days later in hospital after his life-support machine was switched off.

Hugo Boss admitted to health and safety breaches at a hearing at Banbury Magistrates’ Court on 2 June for failing to secure mirror.  The defending QC entered a guilty plea for the company to offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

However the prosecuting team on behalf of Cherwell District Council, told the court that the label should be sentenced at the crown court because the maximum fine at magistrates’ court was only £20,000.  “Plainly this a very serious matter relating to a child aged four-and-a-half who on June 4 2013 was struck on the head by a seven feet tall, 18 stone free standing three-way mirror,” he added.

“It wasn’t fixed to the wall despite its own requirements. We say, bearing in mind that the injuries the child sustained resulted in his death that this is a case that should be dealt with in the crown court.”

An inquest concluded the mirror should have been fixed to a wall, while coroner Darren Salter described the incident as “an accident waiting to happen”.  In sentencing the company, Oxford Crown Court Judge Peter Ross said Hugo Boss had a “corporate responsibility”, and he wanted to ensure the issue went to the “very top of the company”.

Source: SHP 04/09/2015

HSE Prosecutions:

Construction company fined for gas safety failings

A company that constructs extensions to houses has been fined after incorrectly working on gas flue, potentially putting lives at risk as harmful could have seeped back into the house.

Southwark Crown Court heard how, between June 2013 and June 2014, Wedgewood Design and Build Limited of London, was building an extension across the full width of a house at a property at Greenside Road, West London. The extension work required the gas flue to be repositioned. This involved extending an existing gas flue which was boxed into a void, meaning there was no way of examining the flue. Also, an incorrect type of pipe was used for the flue.

Wedgewood Design and Build Limited, of Ballards Lane, London was fined a total of £9,000, and ordered to pay £7,500 in costs after pleading guilty to an offence under Regulation 8 (3) of the Gas Safety(Installation and Use) Regulations 1998.

HSE Myth Busters:

Golf club won’t put Committee meeting minutes onto notice board

Issue

A golf club has stopped putting Committee meeting minutes onto a notice board for health and safety reasons.

Panel opinion

There are no conceivable health and safety reasons for not displaying documents such as minutes of a meeting onto a notice board.  It is totally mystifying that someone should suggest this.

Non-travellers banned from platform at railway station

Issue

Only travellers are allowed on to the platform at a railway station, preventing non-travellers from seeing off family and friends.

 

Panel opinion

A few station operators have phased out the use of discretionary platform-only tickets for commercial and operational reasons. These reasons include ticket barriers and the need to combat fare dodgers in some locations. Most railway stations do still accommodate non-travellers on their platforms to meet and greet loved ones but some may take the reasonable step of suspending this at really busy times if platforms are crowded. In this latter situation it may be that “health and safety” is used as shorthand to explain the reason but this is not a valid excuse at non peak times.