Garage director fined for ignoring safety notice

Date:

4 April 2011

Release No:

COISE/001

The director of a garage in Edgware has been fined after failing to comply with a safety order issued to protect workers from injury.

Richard Grant, of Scuff Plus Limited, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for ignoring an Improvement Notice requiring a statutory examination be carried out on the pressure system compressor being used at the garage.

City of London Magistrates' Court heard an HSE inspector visited the garage on 6 May 2009. Mr Grant was unable to produce an examination, in line with a Written Scheme of Examination, for the pressure system compressor. The examination is a requirement under the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000, and needed to ensure the pressure system is safe for continued use.

The defendant failed to reply to official letters reminding Scuff Plus Limited to comply with their legal duties therefore an Improvement Notice was served on the 14th October 2009.

In January 2010 Mr Grant told the HSE inspector he would not use the pressure vessel until it had been examined by a competent person. However, a follow up check a month later found the compressor was still in use.

After the hearing, HSE Inspector Jack Wilby said:

"Richard Grant flagrantly disregarded his duties to comply with health and safety regulations, showing little respect for the risks to others from pressure systems.

"Despite having more than ten months to put things right and receiving written and verbal advice explaining his duties and how he could comply, he chose to do nothing.

"To make matters worse, Scuff Plus Limited was also given an extension on the Improvement Notice served, which it breached. This cavalier attitude to safety is entirely unacceptable.

"HSE may take tough enforcement action against employers who put their workers in danger."

Richard Grant of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulations 9 (1) of the Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000. He was given a 12 month conditional discharge and ordered to pay costs of £500.

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 9.(1) Subject to paragraph (7), the user of an installed system and the owner of a mobile system shall- (a)ensure that those parts of the pressure system included in the scheme of examination are examined by a competent person within the intervals specified in the scheme and, where the scheme so provides, before the system is used for the first time; and (b)before each examination take all appropriate safety measures to prepare the system for examination, including any such measures as are specified in the scheme of examination pursuant to regulation 8(3)(b).

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