Court Roundup

The following cases involving Health & Safety have been chosen to represent principles of safety management rather than specific to our clients.

 ‘Across the board’ failings cost firm £113k

The death of a forklift truck driver at a Melton Mowbray firm’s yard would have been prevented had a risk assessment been carried out before building work started on the site.  

Leicester Crown Court, sitting on 19 March, heard that Kenneth Chalk, employed by Melton Mowbray-based Elsome Engineering, was crushed to death by his own truck as he was moving steel girders from the firm’s yard to its workshop in February 2003.

The company and its director, Timothy Elsome, had both pleaded guilty at a magistrates’ hearing in February to the same three charges:
* s2(1) of the HSWA 1974 – failure to ensure the safety of employees by not making them aware of excavations that were going on at the company’s premises and not supervising drivers with respect to the use of seatbelts;
* reg.12(1) of the Workplace (Health & Safety Welfare Regulations) 1992 – failure to ensure the suitability for its purpose of the surface of a traffic route; and* reg.3(1)(a) of the Management of Health & Safety at Work Regulations 1999 – failure to carry out a suitable risk assessment.

The company was fined £75,000 on the first charge and £12,500 for each of the other two breaches. It was ordered to pay full costs of £12,982. Elsome was fined £6000 on the first count and £2000 for each of the other two charges. Costs of £3000 were awarded against him.

“Unfortunately, Mr Chalk wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, which appears to have been common practice at the company,” said Mark Silcox, the HSE inspector who investigated the case

“If the whole sequence of events of the construction of this building had started with a risk assessment, the company could have managed the situation to remove risks to forklift truck drivers and visitors in the yard,” Silcox said.

Points to Note – The need to do risk assessments for all significant activities, but they should cover all foreseen hazards. Also, important in this case, it is not sufficient to supply safety measures and instruct workers in them, they also need to be supervised.  Seat belts were supplied on the flt but the wearing of them was neither enforced nor supervised.  What about your company? Do you supervise?

Injury to rigger costs National Exhibition Centre £33,500

The National Exhibition Centre (NEC) in Birmingham has been prosecuted over an injury to an employee who tried to lift a 53kg load on his own in a store. The store is where rigging motors are taken for maintenance and servicing. The units comprise a motor and integral chain and self-propel out of a holding box to raise items like lights up to roof beams.

When they require maintenance they need to be taken out of the box and repackaged to be sent to the manufacturer. The employee was trying to lift the 53kg motor out of the box by its chain – it did not have a handle – but his hand slipped on the chain grease and he jarred his back, which required hospital treatment. He has since returned to full-time work as a rigger with the NEC.

According to Solihull Council, its inspectors found “a persistent and complete absence of any safe system of work in the rigging stores, and confusion about responsibilities at management level, which led to the accident”. No assessments of the risks associated with handling activities in the rigging stores had been carried out, despite the foreseeable risk of injury.

The National Exhibition Centre Ltd pleaded guilty before Solihull magistrates on 23 January to a breach of s2(1) HSWA for failing to ensure the health and safety of its employee. It was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay the Council’s full costs of £13,500.

Head of environmental health for Solihull Council, Ian Keagle, said: “At the time of the accident there was no evidence of health and safety training, risk assessments had not been revised for some 10 years, and no consideration had been given to manual handling in an area where heavy motors were moved regularly. For an organisation of this size, this was completely unacceptable, and the

fine awarded for these breaches reflects this.”

Points to Note: Here is a case where if manual handling training had been given the exposure of the company would have been a lot less.  Workers would be aware of the need to assess the load and to seek assistance if beyond their capacity.  In a case when work was repeated there should be an assessment and a system of work devised.  For example in this case it is obvious that the handling of the loads was a task performed regularly.  There should have been a system in place for it to be done safely.  And its not just heavy work like this.  If an office junior was regularly asked to move boxes of paper then the overall job should be looked at to ascertain the safest way to do it.  For example have the stationery store on the ground floor to reduce the distance.

Lack of clear instruction a factor in saw injury case

A Czech employee in an Oldham factory suffered serious injuries to his left hand while using an inadequately guarded circular saw.

Jaroslav Linka was using the saw to prepare wood for the construction of pallets at the Bell Street premises of Factory Reconstruction Co ( Manchester ) Ltd. As he worked, his hand came into contact with the saw blade and was severely lacerated.

The firm appeared before Trafford magistrates on 30 November and pleaded guilty to three charges: a breach of reg.8 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 by failing to provide information, instructions, and training for Mr Linka; a breach of reg.11 of the same Regulations by failing to ensure the machine in question was adequately guarded; and a breach of reg.3(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 by failing to suitably and sufficiently risk-assess the task Mr Linka was undertaking. It was fined £3500 on each charge and ordered to pay £1956 costs.

Although the fact that the victim was not a native English-speaker was not a cause of the accident, the importance of communicating safety and risk information to all staff was underlined by HSE inspector Lisa Bailey, who commented: “It is particularly important that companies employing foreign workers make sure that these workers are adequately trained and understand UK health and safety requirements. Employers must be certain that supervisors and workers understand one another and that management decisions and instructions will be properly understood and acted upon by all.”

Points to Note – With the increase in non-British workers nowadays it is particularly important that they are properly made aware of the requirement for safe working due both to their possible poor understanding of English and being accustomed to lower standards of safety

Ladder fall costs firm

Firms were warned to raise their game by an HSE inspector after an employee fell ten feet from a stepladder, breaking his collar-bone and suffering concussion.

Bourne magistrates heard on 8 February that Alec Coulson, night supervisor at the Market Deeping, Lincolnshire, premises of meat packing and processing firm Ken Read & Son, had been standing on a stepladder to try to free up a jam in a conveyor, which jammed sporadically. "The stepladders used were very basic and too short," Lincolnshire HSE principal inspector Jo Anderson, told SHP.

Mr Coulson fell from the ladder on to the concrete floor, landing on his head and shoulder.

Inspector Anderson commented: "Although this was a nasty injury, it could easily have been a lot worse. Every year people working at height lose their lives or suffer serious injury. Contractors and their clients need to exercise sufficient control to prevent this sort of thing happening, including carrying out a proper risk assessment.

Ken Read & Son pleaded guilty to breaching reg.3(1)(a) of the Management Regulations 1999 in failing to carry out a suitable risk assessment and was fined £3000. The firm also pleaded guilty to a breach of s2(1) of HSWA 1974 in not ensuring its employees’ safety, for which it was fined £10,000. It was ordered to pay the HSE’s full costs of £923.

Points to Note – How many companies DON’T use stepladders for such mundane jobs as changing light bulbs.  Have you done a risk assessment for this?