prosecutions

13th September 2016

Pembrokeshire refinery fined £400,000

The operator of a major Pembrokeshire refinery has been fined £400,000 and ordered to pay costs of £60,614 following the failure of an access walkway which resulted in an operator suffering fractures and lacerations to both legs and a dislocated knee.  The court heard that the company had:

failed to carry out a sufficient risk assessment of the use and operation of the access tower, failed to provide adequate information, instruction and training to employees as to the safe use and operation of the access tower failed to carry out adequate investigations into three previous and related incidents failed to review the check-list risk assessment in light of those incidents failed to act on the recommendations of their inspection contractor failed to install any means of detection or prevention of slack cable in the mechanism failed to detect that the access tower was neither CE marked, nor subject to a Declaration of Conformity, as required.
2nd September 2016

Construction firm fined £144,000

A construction firm has been fined £144,000 after a worker was seriously injured when he fell off a roof during demolition work. The Romanian labourer fell from the partly demolished roof and suffered serious injuries. No scaffolding had been provided and the work was not being supervised.

The site was inspected by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) two weeks after the incident and unsupervised demolition work was still being carried out. A number of serious matters were identified including asbestos which had been removed from the house and was found in a pile by a neighbouring property’s hedge and in broken pieces mixed in with other debris.

1st September 2016

Warehousing company fined £166,000 and the director jailed for twelve months

A warehousing company was fined £166,000 and ordered to pay £10,400 costs and the director jailed for twelve months following the death of one of his workers when a remote controlled Mobile Elevated Working Platform (MEWP) he was loading on to a truck fell from the ramps and crushed him.

On investigation HSE found that the deceased had not been adequately trained on the use of the ramps, the lorry and the MEWP. There was no risk assessment in place and no safe system of work had been created for the equipment, which had only been in operation for eight days.