Worker's fall leads to fine

Date:

16 March 2012

Release No:

HSE/EM/320

A partner in a Leicester food company has been fined after an employee fell around two metres while unloading a shipping container attached to the back of an HGV.

Jaisukh Chandarana asked an 18-year-old worker to unload barrels, stored in layers with plywood separating each layer, from the container at Simtom Food Products factory in Merry Lees.

The teenage worker, who has asked not to be identified, was lifted on a pallet on a fork lift truck to climb onto a stack of pallets near the container doors. From there he entered the container and dragged the barrels onto the pallet held at height by the fork lift.

Leicester Magistrates' Court was told that while stepping from one pallet to another, the man fell around two metres, resulting in severe bruising to his abdomen and sprains to his shoulder and wrist. As a result he was off work for a several weeks.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Mr Chandarana for the 4 January 2011 incident.

Mr Chandarana, 57, of Hastings Road, Kirby Muxloe, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 4(1) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 and was fined £7,500 with costs of £1,380.

After the hearing HSE inspector Alison Cook said:

"Had a safe system of unloading been used then this incident would not have happened. Lifting people up on pallets on a fork lift is utterly unacceptable because of the potential consequences of a fall. It was pure luck that a young man was not more seriously injured.

"Since the incident Mr Chandarana has contracted out unloading to a firm with a level loading dock to eliminate the risk of a fall. It is a pity someone had to be hurt for this to be chosen."

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. Regulation 4(1) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 states: "Every employer shall ensure that work at height is properly planned; appropriately supervised; and carried out in a manner which is so far as is reasonably practicable safe."
3. Visit: www.hse.gov.uk/falls for more guidance on working at height.

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Issued on behalf of HSE by COI News & PR East Midlands