Company fined after man crushed by truck

Date:

13 December 2010

Release No:

COISE/1312

A Buckinghamshire engineering company has been fined £30,000 after a worker was crushed to death at its premises.

Bryn Evans, 52, from Milton Keynes was acting as a banksman at Trevett Engineering Limited and was guiding a reversing heavy goods delivery vehicle towards a doorway when he was killed.

As Mr Evans was guiding the lorry into the loading area he became trapped between the back of the vehicle and the building's brick wall. He died at the scene from crush injuries to his chest.

Milton Keynes Crown heard Mr Evans had not received training as a banksman. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) also showed there was no specific need for a banksman during the reversing process, it had merely become customary at the site.

Trevett Engineering Limited, of Third Avenue, Denbigh West, Bletchley, pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. Today the company was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay costs of £11,630.

HSE Inspector, Karl Howes said:

"This tragic case illustrates the risks that are associated with deliveries and reversing vehicles.

"It is vital that employers fully assess the risks involved in deliveries to site. Banksman should only be used when there are no safer available methods to control reversing and then only when people have been fully trained to undertake that role."

Notes to editors

1. 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. For more information about the work of HSE, visit www.hse.gov.uk
2. 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."

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Issued on behalf of HSE by COI News and PR South East