Company fined after worker suffers fatal injuries after being run over at work

Date:

29 July 2009

Release No:

COI/SE/0407

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is urging companies to ensure that sufficient safety procedures and risk assessments are in place to properly protect staff.

The call comes after the prosecution today (29 July) of John Stacey and Sons Ltd at Winchester Crown Court. The prosecution follows an incident at the company's Tadley site on 1 June 2007. An employee, Frederick Aubrey, was run over and died five days later from his injuries.

John Stacey and Sons Ltd pleaded guilty to section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and regulation 3(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 at an earlier hearing at Basingstoke Magistrates Court on 29 June. Today the company was fined £60,000 and ordered to pay full costs of £29,061. It also has to pay a victim surcharge of £15.

On 1 June 2007, Frederick Aubrey was working at a waste transfer station in Silchester Road, Tadley, owned by John Stacey and Sons Ltd. Mr Aubrey, along with two other employees, was hand-sorting waste, a process known as 'totting'. A fourth worker was helping the three men with the totting when the driver of a skip loader came on site. He asked the fourth worker to get into a shovel loader and tip over one of the skips. The worker did so and in the process reversed over Mr Aubrey, who died five days later in hospital.

David Bibby, HSE Inspector, said:

"This case highlights the importance of assessing risks and putting adequate controls in place to protect pedestrians from vehicles, and the tragic consequences when this is not properly done. The practice of totting had only been going on at the company for about two weeks prior to the incident and they had not recognised that by doing this people were being unnecessarily exposed to the risk of vehicles moving around them with nothing to protect them.

"This should serve as a message to all companies, and especially those in the waste industry where unfortunately accidents like this are all too common, to ensure that risks from workplace transport are identified and suitable measures put in place to prevent accidents."

Notes to editors

1. Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.
2. Regulation 3(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 states: Every employer shall make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of his employees to which they are exposed whilst they are at work.

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Issued on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive by COI News & PR (London & South East).