Recycling company prosecuted after worker's foot is crushed

Date:

4 April 2012

Release No:

SE/64/12

A recycling company has been fined after a teenager with a promising career in motocross had his foot broken by a 16-tonne machine.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Countrystyle Recycling Limited of Lenham, Maidstone, for failing to operate a safe system at working at their site in Folkestone, Kent.

Maidstone Magistrates' Court heard yesterday (3 April) that on 22 February 2010, Daniel Brown, 19, was sorting waste at the recycling plant in Park Farm Close when a tyre of a 16-tonne shovel ran over his right foot.

Mr Brown broke 16 bones in his foot and is still suffering with pain and arthritis. He has had to give up a possible career in Motocross, having won races at national level and negotiated a potential sponsorship package. He cannot learn to drive for his car licence and has not been able to return to work.

The HSE investigation found there was no system in operation to ensure moving vehicles and pedestrians were segregated. Employees were simply told verbally to stay clear of manoeuvring vehicles.

An Improvement Notice was issued by HSE at an early stage of the investigation to segregate vehicles and pedestrians.

At the time of the incident it was raining, and the windscreen wipers on the shovel were inoperative. The heater in the cab was broken so the windows tended to steam up, reducing visbility. The shovel also had a broken wing mirror, no reversing lights, no reversing CCTV or convex mirror and wouldn't always go into gear. Moreover, a screwdriver was used to start it and the roof beacon and lights would regularly blow bulbs.

After the prosecution, HSE's inspector Stephen Green said:

"The injured worker was lucky not to be killed as a result of this incident, which could have easily been avoided if the long list of failures with this vehicle and systems had been addressed earlier.

"HSE has plenty of helpful guidance that could have been followed, and if the company had implemented a safe system of work, segregating moving vehicles from pedestrians, then a young man wouldn't have broken a bone for every tonne of weight that rolled over his foot - 16 in total.

"There is no excuse for not having a safe system of work in place."

Countrystyle Recycling Limited of Ashford Road, Lenham, Maidstone, Kent, pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 in relation to the incident. The firm was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £6,221 in costs.

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. For further information on deaths in the waste industry see http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2011/hse-fatalstatswaste.htm

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