Company and director prosecuted after staff exposed to high levels of lead

Date:

5 August 2010

Release No:

HSE-E-22

A sheet metal manufacturing company and its director have been fined after workers were exposed to high levels of lead at its factory in Norfolk.

Staff at the Anglia Lead Ltd plant in Barker Street, Norwich, suffered the exposure as they cast molten lead into lead sheeting, sold for various uses including roofing old buildings, such as churches.

Anglia Lead Ltd had numerous health and safety failings, the prosecution brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found. Workers could have breathed in lead dust; absorbed the substance into their skin; or ingested it orally, for example when they ate, drank or smoked a cigarette during breaks or even after work hours without washing their hands.

The company appeared at Norwich Magistrates' Court today and admitting failing to ensure the health and safety of its workers, breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. Director Carlton Edwards admitted committing the same offence in his capacity as a company director.

Magistrates fined the company £10,000 and Mr Edwards a further £10,000. The company was also ordered to pay full prosecution costs of £10,556.

Investigations by the Health and Safety Executive found the company and its director had:

• Failed to provide suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to health created by work involving lead
• Failed to adequately control exposure to lead
• Failed to provide sufficient control measures, including lack of adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), no adequate local exhaust ventilation system to remove lead fumes from the workplace, no adequate clothes washing system and no adequate hygiene controls
• Failed to provide employees with suitable information, instruction and training
• Failed to suitably investigate when occupational exposure level limits were exceeded and action levels reached
• Failed to provide air monitoring as regularly as required

HSE Inspector Julie Jarvey said:

"Exposure to lead is very serious and can be damaging to health. Lead is classified as a substance hazardous to health for good reason - when the dust or fumes are ingested or inhaled it can lead to long term ill-effects.

"Anglia Lead Ltd and its director failed to discharge their duties, meaning the company's processes fell significantly below the expected standards required for working with the material.

"HSE will not hesitate to prosecute companies and directors failing to carry out their legal obligations for ensuring the health and safety of their employees."

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. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement.
3. For more information on working safely with lead see http://www.hse.gov.uk/lead/

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