Coronavirus has dominated the headlines and amongst all this some commentators have speculated that employers may be about to face prosecution if they don’t take all Covid-19 precautions possible to protect staff and third parties from infection. Now it is correct to say that employers in the UK owe duties under the Health and Safety at...
A truck company that buys, refurbishes and sells Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) and trailers has been sentenced after the death of 63-year-old self-employed worker William Price. On 21 February 2013 Mr Price suffered fatal head injuries when the half-ton frame of a lorry trailer, he was dismantling, fell on his head at the Marston...
After Deloitte was hit by a cyber security attack earlier this week, we have to ask, how safe are we? We at Ferguson Legal care more about health and safety than your average UK citizen. So we need to suggest that IT security be considered under the health and safety banner. If one of...
If you have been subject to a Fee For Intervention bill and wished you had challenged it, read on! We recently explored the Judicial Review case of HSE’s Fee For Intervention dispute process. A consequence was the HSE agreed to look at changing the process for challenging such fees. (It entered into a legal agreement with...
A judicial review challenge over the disputes process of the Health and Safety Executive’s cost recovery has been dropped. The HSE has settled the matter out of court. The case was due to be heard on 8 March 2017 after OCS Group, an international facilities management and maintenance company, was granted permission for the judicial...
HGV drivers are frequently putting lives at risk by not following basic safety procedures when coupling and uncoupling vehicles, the Health and Safety Executive have warned. The workplace health and safety regulator urged drivers to apply parking brakes and use (or retrofit) warning alarms to avoid a repeat of an incident in January 2015...
Leedale Limited, a waste management and plant hire company in Derbyshire, was fined £300,000 after a worker was fatally crushed between two vehicles. Derby Crown Court heard how 39-year-old Matthew Lambert was refuelling his road sweeper at the Company’s yard. The refuelling point on the vehicle was at the rear; whilst he was refuelling a...
A company has been fined £2.6 million after an employee was killed when the trench he was working in collapsed in on him. On the 14 April 2010, Mr Sim, a sub-contractor working on behalf of Balfour Beatty Utility Solutions Limited, was laying ducting for new cable for an offshore windfarm that was being built...
A food waste disposal and recycling firm has been fined £250,000 following three employees becoming overcome by toxic gases (including hydrogen sulphide) and a reduced oxygen atmosphere whilst working in an animal waste facility. This prosecution comes 12 months after the firm was fined £660,000 following the death of an employee. The previous conviction resulted after a...
Frozen Food giant McCain Foods (GB) Limited has been fined £800,000 for safety failings after an employee nearly lost his arm. Peterborough Crown Court heard how 34-year-old employee, Adam Regan, was checking the condition of a conveyor belt when his arm became entangled and was almost severed. Although his arm was saved, he now has limited...
Bonfire night has been and gone; with the news of several firework events being cancelled due to bad weather it got us thinking – doesn’t happen often we agree but it did – about fireworks, health & safety and children. Anyway, fireworks and bonfires are inherently dangerous and quite often people, mainly kids, forget this....
I know we constantly bang on about health & safety at work but it is so essential for Company Directors to take personal responsibility to train and protect the safety of their workers…..as the consequences are devastating. Company Director Kenneth Thelwall, from Enfield, has been jailed for 12 months following the death of one...
Since the announcement in April of funding from Central Government to the Health & Safety Executive being cut we were left wondering how can the same organisation run effectively with such a huge financial blow? This is going to be one uphill struggle, I mean we are not talking a few pounds here it will...
The sawmill company, A. Diamond and Son, has been fined a total of £75,000 and ordered to pay £15,832 in costs for safety failings that led to the death of employee, Peter Lennon in September 2012. The sentence followed a guilty plea to the charge of corporate manslaughter in December 2014. A joint investigation...
An Ayrshire waste recycling firm has been fined £118,000 on 6 October 2014 for serious safety failings after an agency worker severed his left arm at the shoulder while clearing a conveyor belt blockage. Steven Dawson, then aged 28, was working as a line supervisor for Lowmac Alloys Ltd at its premises on the...
ER, The Good Wife and reality… So I love, and I do mean love, the above TV shows. In fact I could sit up all night and overdose (forgive the pun) on them both. But what do they have to do with Health & Safety I hear you ask… Well, probably not a lot...