Two companies fined £815,000 following fatality

Two companies were fined a total of £815,000 after a worker was crushed to death in Lancashire by a refuse collection vehicle (RCV) whilst it was being refurbished. The HSE investigation found the fatal injury resulted from a poor system of work at the company (JFS) carrying out the refurbishment. In addition, the waste company failed in its inspection regime, which did not systematically review the functionality of the safety limit switch on RCVs. Had the fault with the safety limit switch been identified, and rectified, the poor system of work employed at JFS would not have resulted in the entrapment of the worker.