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Posts with the 'Prosecutions' tag
400% Increase in Prosecutions: Senior Management
An interesting article in SHP (Safety & Health Practitioner) states that there has been a substantial increase in the number of prosecutions under the HSWA 1974 last year. These are the unofficial figures recently released by the HSE.
The figures indicate a 400% increase in prosecutions over the last 5 years, which is enough to ring alarm bells for those who see Health and Safety regulations as a burden on their time, resources and funding. A wake up call indeed!
For more on this story see More senior managers prosecuted for health and safety failings
Source: SHP
Major Retailer: Asbestos Fine
Once again the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) are making an example of those who put members of the public and their staff at risk during construction works.
Marks and Spencer, the well-known retailers, has been found guilty and fined £1m as recent construction works put people at risk of asbestos exposure during a facelift at its Reading store. They were also ordered to pay £600,000 costs on having been found guilty at an earlier hearing in a case brought by the HSE.
The HSE's Richard Boland said: "This outcome should act as a wake-up call that any refurbishment programmes involving asbestos-containing materials must be properly resourced, both in terms of time and money - no matter what."
For more on this story, see The Reading Chronicle.
Source: The Reading Chronicle
Legionnaires Disease Death
The Safety & Health Practitioner reported that an exclusive leisure resort in Scotland has been fined £120,000 for failing to put in place adequate controls to prevent Legionnaires' disease. A man died and his wife was also very ill, suffering from Pontiac Fever, a short feverish form of Legionnaires' disease. It makes one wonder if the cuts in Health and Safety are really a wise move.
For more on this article go to Golf-resort guest died from Legionnaires’ Disease.
Source: SHP Online
Building firm fined over trench-collapse death
A Buckinghamshire construction company has been fined £5,000 after a contractor died when a trench collapsed on him.
This recently reported story from SHP (Safety & Health Practitioner) is very sad and it really brings it home to us how easily a life can be lost due to lack of planning and no risk assessment. The lad who died is local to us (Leighton Buzzard) our thoughts are with the family.
For more on this story see Hard-up building firm to pay £5000 over trench-collapse death.
Source: SHP Online
Geotechnical Firm Found Guilty of Corporate Manslaughter
The BBC reported on February 15th that Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings has been found guilty of corporate manslaughter in the first ever conviction under the Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007.
This is big news as it has taken so long for anyone to be brought to justice. Perhaps now this case has come to light, with consequences, clients will take the act more seriously now.
For more on this see Company guilty of Cheltenham geologist's manslaughter
Working at Height: Cherry Picker Struck by Overhead Crane
A very serious accident recently occured when a crane hit a cherry picker and the basket was knocked to the ground leaving Alexander Struthers, a steel erector, with multiple broken bones.
Following the case being heard at Lanark Sheriff Court, Health and Safety Executive Inspector Eve Macready said: "This completely avoidable incident has had an enormous impact on Mr Struthers' life.
"Duty holders have an obligation to ensure all work at height is properly planned and a proper risk assessment has taken place."
For more on this see Steel erector knocked from cherry picker by crane
Source: Construction Enquirer
HSE - Falls From Height Prosecutions
The HSE has prosecuted two companies after three workers fell through skylights on three separate occasions at an industrial unit in Warrington. The SHP reported that, on three separate occasions, three similar incidents were allowed to happen.
An astonished HSE officer stated that "A man was sent on to a roof without safety equipment, despite two caretakers falling through skylights less than a month earlier"
As we all know, more workplace deaths are caused by falls from height than anything else but companies continue to allow workers to balance dangerously on roofs. It is vital that lessons are learnt from this tragic case.
-- Click to read the full article on the SHP website
Charges dropped in first Corporate Manslaughter Trial
The SHP (Safety & Health Practitioner) has stated that the charges against the director have been dropped in the first corporate manslaughter trial. This has raised concerns as Sally Roff, partner and head of the safety, health and environment group at law firm Beachcroft LLP, believes that the Corporate Manslaughter Act has been tainted by the latest delay in court proceedings.
The long-awaited trial of Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings Ltd under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 has been adjourned again until 24 January 2011. Sally Roff also stated that "The Corporate Manslaughter Act has become tarnished with delay, both by the time it took to come to the statute books and now in its implementation."
This is a shame as most of us had such high hopes of this particular act providing a better mechanism of taking those responsible to 'task' over their negligence. We can now only await the outcome, but one has to feel for those families that have been affected; surely they would like to have some sort of closure sooner rather than later?
-- Click to read the full article
Source: SHP
Corporate Manslaughter - first case
Our colleagues at Callsafe report in their latest newsletter that the first Corporate Manslaughter case to be brought to court is to be tried in February 2010. The case against Gloucestershire-based Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings is due to the death of one of their Junior Geologists in September 2008. He was killed when a pit in which he was taking soil samples as part of a site survey collapsed on him.
The company has been charged under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Killing Act 2007 with the unlawful killing of their employee by gross negligence. Director, Peter Eaton, is also charged with gross negligence manslaughter and for a breach of s37 of the HASAWA.
Although the trial is set to take place at Bristol Crown Court, opening on 23 February 2010 and is likely to last six weeks, the company and the Director have yet to enter a plea. The plea hearing, originally planned for August, is now due to take place in October; subsequent to the defendants' barrister requesting more time.
Female worker crushed by reversing forklift truck
A company has been fined £6,000 for failing to monitor and supervise forklift truck movements in the packing area of its factory.
The court heard that the driver had reversed up to the injured person and a colleague in order to have a short conversation with them. She was crushed between the truck and a steel packing table. She sustained a fractured pelvis, damage to internal organs, and a broken left leg and spent some four months in hospital. A colleague sustained a minor foot injury in the same incident.
Prosecuting HSE inspector Joanne Nicholls said that an ineffective barrier meant to prevent lift trucks from entering the area had not been detected and rectified. She explained: "The barrier left an opening, which was wide enough to allow lift-truck access into an area where lift trucks were meant to be prohibited. The company also failed to adequately instruct relevant employees on the purpose of the barrier. This was compounded by inadequate supervision and monitoring by management, which allowed lift-trucks to breach the barrier during production. This accident highlights the complexities of managing transport risks in the workplace. Even with a fully trained lift-truck driver and a maintained forklift truck, accidents can still occur when insufficient attention is paid to pedestrian segregation and workplace layout."
Lack of access ladder on scaffold led to fall
A man on work experience suffered fractured ribs when he fell from a tower scaffold. The Company was fined £3000 after the magistrates court was told that there was no access ladder on the scaffold, and the working platform and edge protection was incomplete.
The man was using the scaffold to maintain a fluorescent light fitting at a factory unit, which the Company was refurbishing. He climbed up the internal bracing of the scaffold and fell 4.5 metres when the bar he pulled on came away.
The HSE served a prohibition notice on the scaffold to the two directors of the company, when it investigated the accident.
Pleading guilty to a breach of section 3(1) of the HSWA the company said that it had co-operated with the HSE, had not undertaken any work at height since the accident and showed audited accounts to the court on its ability to pay a fine as the company had only been trading six months when the accident happened. It was also ordered to pay costs of £1398.
Prosecuting inspector John Moran, after the case, was reported to have said that this had been an unnecessary accident as the company could have followed a HSE guidance note on tower scaffolds and hired an alternative scaffold.
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