Parcel firm fined £150,000 after lorry reverses into worker's head

Date:

1 August 2011

Release No:

HSE-e-32-11

Tuffnells Parcels Express Ltd has been fined £150,000 and ordered to pay £19,000 in court costs after an employee was seriously injured when his skull was crushed by a reversing lorry at the company's depot in West Horndon nr Brentwood, Essex.

The damage to the depot wall where Mr Mason was injured

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), prosecuting, told Chelmsford Crown Court that in the early hours of 23 March 2010, Simon Mason, 22, from Romford, Essex was working the nightshift as a warehouse porter. An articulated 45ft HGV trailer was being reversed into an open loading bay while Mr Mason waited to unload it.

Mr Mason noticed the trailer was not positioned straight in the bay, so thinking it had stopped moving, he put his head around the back of the trailer to shout instructions to the driver. Just as he did so, the trailer came back further, crushing his head against the brick bay wall.

Mr Mason received severe head injuries requiring constant care for months and had to undergo several operations. He returned to work in February but is still suffering some long term effects.

HSE's investigation found Tuffnells had not assessed, controlled, or properly managed the risks arising from vehicle and equipment movements at its West Horndon depot. It had also failed to provide a safe system of work for its employees.

After the hearing today at Chelmsford Crown Court, HSE Inspector Glyn Davies said:

The damage to the depot wall where Mr Mason was injured

"Working with moving vehicles is a high risk activity which causes significant numbers of major and fatal injuries every year in this country. Tuffnells is well aware of these risks and this horrific incident in which a young man could have lost his life would have been avoided had the company's senior management ensured such risks were properly managed in all of its depots.

"This firm could have put in place a physical separation between the porters, moving vehicles and the loading bays and a safe way for porters and drivers to communicate with each other. None of these measures were evident and so a worker was seriously hurt for no good reason."

Last year, 17 workers were killed and more than 530 suffered major injury after being hit by moving vehicles while at work in Great Britain. Of these, two workers were killed and 130 received major injuries resulting specifically from contact with a reversing vehicle.

Tuffnells Parcels Express Ltd, whose Head Office is in Shepcote House, Shepcote Lane, Sheffield, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £150,000 with costs of £19,000.

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. 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."
3. Advice and guidance for employers on managing workplace transport safely can be found at http://www.hse.gov.uk/workplacetransport/index.htm

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