Risk, Health and Safety Information

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HSE Prosecutions: 

Recycling firm sentenced over safety failing after death of man

A waste recycling firm has been sentenced after admitting safety failings related to a worker being killed at its premises in Batley.

Bradford Crown Court heard that on 17 August 2012, Simon Brook, an employee of Gwynn Davies-McTiffin Ltd was found lying seriously injured at the bottom of a horizontal baling machine.

His legs had been partially severed inside the machine and had to be amputated by a doctor at the scene. The 50-year-old father of six died two days later.

The court heard though there were no witnesses to the incident, it seems likely the deceased was fatally injured when he fell into the baling machine’s hopper while clearing a blockage. A steel pole was found in the chamber, suggesting that Mr Brook had been using the pole to clear a blockage at the time of the accident.

The HSE served a Prohibition Notice on the company on the day of the incident prohibiting use of the baler involved due to the guarding deficiencies allowing access to dangerous parts. An Improvement Notice was also served requiring the company to provide systems of work for all foreseeable interventions on the baler.

HSE told the court that failings at the company’s premises in Batley were systemic. Health and safety management systems fell far short of what was required with management failing to ensure that long standing actions from risk assessments were implemented or that safe working practices for clearing blockages were put in place.

The court heard that blockages occurred every shift at the plant, with employees describing various unsafe methods of clearing blockages in the hopper of the baler. These included standing on the top platform, leaning over the side and prodding the blockage with a stick, climbing over the side of the machine and standing on the conveyor belt at the top of the hopper or jumping on the cardboard blockage within the hopper.

Gwynn Davies-McTiffin Ltd of Ings Mill, Bradford Rd, Batley, West Yorkshire was fined £80,000 with costs of £40,000 after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2 (1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

Food manufacturing company and director sentenced

A multi million pound turnover food manufacturer and one of its directors have been fined after a worker was crushed by a forklift truck at its Warwickshire factory.

Leamington Crown Court heard that agency worker Jamie Barsby was lucky to be alive after the incident at The Sandwich Factory Holdings Ltd on the Carlyon Road Industrial Estate in Atherstone on 29 July 2012.

He was thrown from the forks of a forklift truck and crushed between the forklift and the back of an articulated lorry as he was being lifted into the back of the lorry to reorganise pallets of sandwiches. The 26-year-old, from Atherstone, broke a number of vertebrae, fractured his pelvis and suffered blood blisters all over his body.

The Judge found that director Paul Nicholson had failed to ensure safety management systems were in place at the factory. The court heard that had such systems been in place, the unsafe practice would not have occurred.

The Sandwich Factory Holdings Ltd, of Helsinki Road, Sutton Fields Industrial Estate, Kingston upon Hull, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. It was fined a total of £60,000 and ordered to pay costs of £57,790.

Director Paul Nicholson, aged 55, of Balnain, Drumndrochit, Inverness, pleaded guilty to two breaches of Section 37(1) of the same Act. He was given a conditional discharge and ordered to pay costs of £50,513. 

Transport company in court over driver’s death

A Norfolk-based road transport company has been sentenced for safety failings after a driver suffered life-changing injuries and later died following an incident in Broxbourne, Herts. 

Keith Brookes, 61 (he was 59 at the time of the accident),from Milton Keynes, fell from a unsecured ladder during an operation to unload items from a lorry at the Hertfordshire Golf and Country Club on White Stubbs Lane on 23 November 2012. 

 

The incident was investigated by the HSE, which prosecuted Mr Brookes’ employer, David Watson Transport Ltd, after finding the company had failed to properly safeguard workers from falls. 

David Watson Transport Ltd of Mundford Road, Weeting, Norfolk, was fined a total of £150,000 and ordered to pay costs of £88,030.69 after being found guilty to three counts of the Work at Height Regulations 2005.