Category Archives: In the courts

Harrogate Magistrates fined three companies a total of £38,200 after 10 tonnes of food waste was left on grazing land, leading to a risk of foot-and-mouth disease. FD Todd & Sons took the waste from Pro-Pak Foods to a farm run by Coast to Coast Recycling. The recipient believed it was vegetable material but the Pro-Pak had changed the content. Failure to complete transfer notes, and not checking the material, had led to the offences.

In a separate case, Torquay Magistrates fined retailer Trago Mills £185,000 for burning and dumping up to 6,000 tonnes of waste over many years. The Environment Agency told the Court that the company sidestepped existing recycling schemes to avoid the costs of correct disposal.

Bournemouth Crown Court fined Marks and Spencer’s £1m with £600,000 costs after a breach of asbestos rules at the Broad Street, Reading, store.

Contractors had worked night shifts to remove asbestos, completing small sections before trading resumed each day. The Judge heard that contractors, shop staff and the public were at risk of asbestos exposure. The Health and Safety Executive had alleged that M&S failed to ensure removal work met at least the minimum standards. The company had produced its own guidance on the task, but the contractors failed to follow these properly. Three contracting companies were fined £150,000 in total.

Poundstretcher were prosecuted after Doncaster Council found that all the fire exit routes at the Doncaster warehouse were blocked.

The initial enforcement action was to serve an Improvement Notice. However, a subsequent visit found that although there had been some progress, contraventions still existed and an appearance at the Magistrates’ Court was merited. Doncaster Magistrates handed down fines and costs totalling £43,000. This follows convictions for similar offences at two other Yorkshire branches of Poundstretcher in 2009.

Teenager Ben Burgin required plastic surgery to his face after being trapped by a bus he was working on.

The incident happened at Wakefield Road garage in Barnsley. The employee, who worked for Yorkshire Traction Company, was with an experienced fitter trying to solve a braking fault on a bus that had an air suspension system. They chose not to move the bus to an inspection pit, and Mr Burgin slid underneath near the front passenger wheel. The air suspension failed suddenly and the bus dropped down on his face.

The Stockport-based company admitted offences under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and incurred fines and costs totalling around £24,000. An HSE spokesman said “The risks involved when working on buses with air suspension systems are well known in the industry. The latest guidance has warnings about never going underneath unless buses are properly supported. There have been incidents in the past, including deaths, when air suspension systems have failed catastrophically. Yorkshire Traction fell well below a reasonable standard. It failed to take basic precautions such as looking at all the risks involved and specifying a safe system of work, including close supervision.

Sunderland Housing Company Ltd, now trading as Gentoo Group Ltd, was fined at Newcastle Crown Court after an 80-year-old Penshaw tenant died from carbon monoxide poisoning caused because the chimney for his coal fire was not swept. The fines and costs of £65,000 were justified because the landlord, according to the judge, was responsible for a “continuing systemic failure rather than an isolated breach”.

After the case, HSE Principal Inspector Bruno Porter said: “The risk of dying from carbon monoxide exposure caused by a faulty solid fuel appliance is estimated to be up to ten times higher than that from a gas appliance but the risks are generally not as well known. The appliance needs to be installed and maintained correctly, and used in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions. Landlords and providers of social housing must make sure that solid fuel appliances are regularly maintained – chimneys must be swept regularly and they must make sure the tenant is capable of, and is actually carrying out, any safety-critical cleaning.”

Birmingham Magistrates’ Court levied fines and costs for breaching the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2006 on two Worcestershire companies and a Hall Green builder after asbestos fibres were released during office refurbishment in Birmingham city centre.

Evanacre Colmore Row Ltd, and Marchment Consulting Ltd, both of Droitwich, were each fined £7,000 and ordered to pay £1,500 costs. Roland Morewood, of Hall Green, Birmingham, was fined £1,000 with £823 costs.

Inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) uncovered a series of failings during the refurbishment of 114-116 Colmore Row, work that included upgrading a lift containing asbestos insulating board. Birmingham Magistrates’ Court heard how building owners Evanacre Colmore Row Ltd and project managers Marchment Consulting hired builder Roland Morewood to carry out work over the weekend of 29 January 2010. Moreland was not licensed to do this work, but offered to do the job for a tenth of the cost. When lift engineers arrived, they found pieces of asbestos insulating board spread around the lift shaft area. Air tests taken on several floors revealed significantly high fibre levels, and also several contaminated vacuum cleaners. Asbestos insulating board was discovered in Roland Morewood’s van.

The prosecuting inspector stated: “Evanacre Colmore Row had a survey which clearly showed that asbestos was present. Marchment Consulting, which has expertise in building work, should have known how to deal with asbestos in refurbishment projects.”

According to the road safety charity, Brake, around one in every six drivers would not be able to pass the eyesight test necessary to obtain a licence. Their Fleet Safety Forum division has embarked on a campaign called “Look Sharp” to try and alert fleet managers to the problem, and to encourage regular eyesight tests.

It is estimated that each year around 12.5 million people in the UK do not undergo the recommended two-yearly eye test. Commenting on the problem, Caroline Perry, marketing manager at Brake, said “Fleet managers must address the issue internally and consider their drivers’ eyesight as part of their wider fleet safety strategy. Being an experienced and skilled driver is meaningless if a driver is unable to spot hazards due to poor vision.”

Castle Point Borough Council has been fined £18,000 with £7,500 costs after a child’s hair became trapped in a water outlet at a swimming pool. The seven-year-old was underwater for over two minutes and was unconscious when taken out of the pool although she did recover later.

It transpired that one of the two lifeguards on duty was carrying out a cleaning task and the other could not see the whole pool due to glare. In addition, the Council hadn’t ensured that the outlet had a second vent, which would have reduced the suction pressure when the girl’s hair was being drawn in.

Kimbolton School, an independent school near Huntingdon, pleaded guilty to breaching the Work at Height Regulations 2006 after a swimming pool attendant fell from a loft space to the changing rooms below. Huntingdon Magistrates ordered a fine of £6,000 and costs of £2,276.40. The Health and Safety Executive discovered that the school had not carried out a risk assessment for the task, which involved Stacey Paine, aged 19, and the pool manager accessing the loft to retrieve paperwork. This required walking along a narrow beam in the unboarded loft, but Stacey slipped through and fell a distance of 2.5 metres and broke her wrist on the solid floor.

HSE Inspector Stephen Faulkner commented that the paperwork could have been stored somewhere easier to reach and a risk assessment would have identified this.

A 42-year-old roadworker, Cecil Grant died from injuries sustained when falling from a wall when repairing CCTV cameras on the M5 motorway. An investigation concluded that the work had not been properly planned and monitored, and Mr Grant had not been made aware of the dangerous drop near where he was working.

His employers, Serco Ltd, were fined £200,000 (£100,000 for each of two offences) at Bristol Crown Court and ordered to pay costs of £36,186. Birse Civils Ltd was fined £100,000 with costs of £180,093.