Leicester Company Fined for Health and Safety Following Incident
A partner in a Leicester company will be fined due to a worker fall. The worker fell about two metres during the unloading of a shipping container. The container was still hooked to the HGV that brought it to the factory. The employee was 18 years old at the time of the incident. He was unloading barrels that were between plywood. He was working on top of a pallet that was used to drag the containers onto a forklift, which would then take the barrels to a place in the factory. When he was stepping onto the pallet from another he fell, bruising his abdomen and spraining his shoulder and wrist. It meant a few weeks off work for the young man.
The health and safety audits of the incident revealed there were clear issues with regulations. The incident occurred in 2011 and the partner of the company was found to be in breach of regulation 4(1) of the Health and Safety regulations of 2005 that deal with height laws. The partner has to pay £7,500 in a fine and £1,400 in other costs. The court did hear evidence that if a safe system for unloading the truck had been in place the incident would not have occurred. It was a clear issue of negligence on part of the company partner, who did not ensure proper safety measures. It is by a miracle that the worker was not injured more seriously or that others had not been hurt before.
