Daniel Hazelton, 30, and Adam Taylor, 28, both of Rickinghall, and Thomas Hazelton, 26, and Peter Johnson, 42, both of Stanton, near Bury St Edmunds, died on January 21, 2011.

The deaths occurred at the premises of Claxton Engineering in Great Yarmouth where a high pressure test bay for offshore components was being constructed.

During the first day of the inquest the jury heard that the four men were working inside the cage below ground level in an excavation reported to be the “length of a tennis court”

The steel cage was to reinforce the concrete base of a unit to test offshore pipes, forming part of a £1.5m new test facility.

Rebar cage collapsed like a ‘picnic table’

John Elvin, for HSE, described the moment that the cage collapsed with the men inside as a “racking movement” best likened to a “collapsing picnic table”.

He said access to the trench was via a ladder and that part of the side wall had collapsed and water needed to be pumped out. The area was described as “marsh land” and had needed piling work earlier in the build.

Mark Aylen, procurement manager for Claxton Engineering, said he had raised concerns about the men working inside the metal cage. He said he had seen one man “squeezing” through and was concerned it would take him a long time to get out in the event of an emergency. Project builders Encompass had assured him the groundwork sub-contractors Hazegood knew how to work properly.

Mr Aylen admitted there had been “no formal handover” when the previous Claxton project manager left for Dubai in October 2010. He left risk assessment matters to Encompass and did not know Hazegood had been employed as sub-contractors until the day work began.

Detective challenged CPS decision

Operation Madera, headed jointly by Norfolk police and HSE, ran for 13 months and the file rested with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) in London for around a year. In February 2013 CPS ruled charges of individual gross negligence or of corporate manslaughter would not be brought.

DCI Andy Guy, of the joint Norfolk and Suffolk Major Investigations Team, said he had challenged this decision but the result came back the same. He expressed concern that the case had been “passed between lawyers three times”. He added:

“I just wanted a separate opinion as after a 13-month investigation I understood things a certain way. I just wanted to make sure everything was clearly understood.”

He said the CPS must have deemed there to be no realistic prospect of securing a conviction.

The HSE has yet to reveal whether a proceedings will be taken under health and safety legislation.

Senior coroner Jacqueline Lake is set to hear further evidence as the inquest continues.

(source)

Sheffield Forgemasters was today ordered to pay £245,000 in fines and costs for safety failings that led to an employee dying of carbon dioxide poisoning after the cellar he was working in filled with the deadly gas.

 

Sheffield Forgemasters^[1]

Labourer Brian Wilkins, 48, was found unconscious at the South Yorkshire foundry after a confined underground area swiftly flooded with the fire-extinguishing mist. Four of his co-workers desperately tried to reach him but were themselves almost overcome by the fast-acting gas.

Mr Wilkins, who had three grown-up sons, was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital after the incident at the firm’s plant on Brightside Lane on 30 May 2008.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated and prosecuted the company for serious safety failings.

Sheffield Crown Court heard today (19 Dec) that on the morning of the incident, Mr Wilkins carried out part of the cable cutting task in an electrical drawpit and then went to carry out the rest of the job in the switchroom cellar, which was only accessible by lifting a manhole cover and dropping down a ladder.

Once underground at the electrical drawpit, Mr Wilkins used a petrol-driven saw to cut through redundant 33,000 volt cables there. At some point later he moved from there to the nearby switchroom cellar with the saw.

Later that morning, colleagues heard the carbon dioxide warning alarms sounding from the cellar. A supervisor and other workmates rushed to help, with several of them trying to get down the ladder from the manhole to rescue Mr Wilkins from the cellar’s confines.

However, all attempts were defeated as each worker struggled to breathe and remain conscious when exposed to the debilitating concentrated carbon dioxide. Mr Wilkins had to be brought to the surface later using slings.

HSE found that use of the petrol-driven saw in the switchroom cellar had likely activated a smoke sensor and prompted the release of the carbon dioxide from the fire extinguishing system.

The court was told Sheffield Forgemasters had failed to provide any rescue equipment for either the cellar or the drawpit.

Other issues identified included a lack of a risk assessment by the firm for the cable cutting task and failing to provide a safe system of work for Mr Wilkins’ task in either underground location. In addition, there was no secure way to isolate the carbon dioxide fire system while work was going on in the cellar.

Sheffield Forgemasters Steel Ltd pleaded guilty to a breach of Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was fined £120,000 and ordered to pay £125,000 in costs.

After the hearing, HSE Inspector Jill Thompson said:

“This was a very upsetting incident that resulted in the needless death of Mr Wilkins. It could have been an even worse tragedy as it was pure chance that another four workers who entered the cellar in a desperate bid to save their colleague did not also perish.

“Exposure to between 10-15 per cent of carbon dioxide in air for more than a minute causes drowsiness and unconsciousness. Exposure to 17-30 per cent in air is fatal is less than one minute. Carbon dioxide is poisonous even if there is an otherwise sufficient supply of oxygen.

“The risks associated with confined spaces are well known in industry and there is an entire set of regulations dealing with controlling the risks associated with them. Multiple fatalities do occur when one person gets into difficulty in such a space and then the rescuers are similarly overcome.

“Sheffield Forgemasters had given no thought to the risks associated with the task being undertaken by Mr Wilkins, nor had they provided emergency rescue equipment.

“This case shows how important it is for companies to effectively risk assess work activities, looking at how the work will be carried out and in what circumstances.”

For information and advice on safe working in confined spaces, visit www.hse.gov.uk/confinedspace^[2]

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^[3]
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.”

(source)

A worker died after inhaling toxic fumes while carrying out restoration work in a bathroom at a flat in South West London.

Southwark Crown Court heard Multicrest Ltd, a franchise of Renubath Services Ltd, had been contracted to restore a bath at a housing association property in Eton Close, Wandsworth.

On 16 June 2009, Colin Pocock was using an industrial paint and varnish remover to strip resin coating from the bath. The stripping agent contained dichloromethane, also known as methylene chloride, which is a carcinogenic chemical. The room had insufficient ventilation and the 55-year-old was overcome by the fumes. He died at the scene and was discovered by the occupant of the flat.

The HSE investigated the incident and found written documents from Multicrest stating that work of this kind should only be carried out in well-ventilated areas. But the firm had failed to provide any ventilation equipment for employees, while managers were unaware of how to carry out the work safely in bathrooms.

HSE inspector Steve Kirton said: "This is a shocking death resulting from totally inadequate ventilation in the enclosed bathroom space in which Colin Pocock had to operate.
?"The risks associated with stripping agents containing dichloromethane are well known, yet he was exposed to lethal fumes with virtually no protection. Mechanical ventilation equipment is often a necessity, but all he had to rely on was a small open window, a basic mask and pot luck.
?"The use of substances that create toxic fumes must only be used where the fumes cannot build up and affect people, and the work must be properly planned and supervised – none of which happened on this occasion."

Multicrest Ltd appeared in court on 23 May and pleaded guilty to breaching s2(1) of the HSWA 1974. It was fined £25,000 and ordered to pay £56,286 in costs.

The HSE also investigated Renubath Services Ltd for failing to ensure adequate ventilation arrangements were in place during work on properties across South West England between February 2006 and July 2009.

The company, now in liquidation, was fined £20,000 and ordered to pay £21,202 in costs at Westminster Magistrates' Court on 30 May 2012, after also pleading guilty to breaching s2(1) of the HSWA 1974.

Source

It has been reported by the Sunderland Echo that property company, Durham Estates Ltd, has been fined £85,000 after a workman died following a shaft fall during renovation work at a former Masonic Temple in Sunderland.

Kevin Shickle, aged 52, was a ‘handyman’ involved in conversion of a dining room and kitchen into a gymnasium and changing rooms. Newcastle Crown Court heard that he was given a “specification sheet” at the start the job which involved removing two dumb waiter systems..

The court heard that Mr Shickle began working on the project on October 4, 2010. It was on October 7 that a company director him trapped (but still alive) in a shaft 3m below ground level. Firefighters cut away part of the shaft before pulling him free. The fall resulted in significant injuries and a severe stroke which was the eventual cause of death.

The court was told that it remains unclear exactly how and why Mr Shickle fell.

Inadequately instructed and left to own devices

The company pleaded guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act and was fined £85,000 and ordered to pay £12,000 prosecution costs.

Judge Goss is reported to have said:

“Mr Shickle was inadequately instructed and inappropriately left to his own devices on this task. The failings giving rise to the offences were a significant cause of his death. The fine is not and cannot be any reflection of the value of the life of Kevin Shickle, a hard-working family man whose life was so tragically lost as a result of health and safety shortcomings."

A spokesman for Durham Estates is reported to have said:

“We are dismayed at the outcome, as we at Durham Estates still maintain this was a tragic accident that nobody could have foreseen. As a company, the safety of all our staff is paramount, and we take it very seriously. We still remain shocked over the loss of Kevin who was a valued member of our team.”

Source

Two workers were exposed to the risk of an explosion while carrying out unsafe welding on a fishing boat’s diesel tank.

The men, one of whom was only 17, were working for boat-repair company C & L Marine Ltd. They were asked to carry out cleaning and welding work to repair a fuel leak on the Margaret of Ladram, which was moored in Sutton Harbour, Plymouth.

The fuel tank was one deck down and accessed from a small manhole below the vessel’s net store. The workers were required to use buckets to empty the tank of more than 600 litres of residual seawater and diesel, and had been provided with rags to clean the inside in preparation for the welding.

Neither man was provided training for the job, nor were they supplied with any respiratory protection. They took turns to enter the tank to clean it, in order to have respite from the fumes. One of them started to find it difficult to breathe when he was inside the tank, and said he felt dizzy and faint.

The next day, one of the men used a grinder, causing sparks to fall on his workmate, who was holding a lamp to illuminate the work. Significant amounts of fumes were created and they evacuated the boat and contacted staff at the harbour for advice.

The harbourmaster visited the boat and halted further work after the company failed to provide documentation and permits to show the tank was safe in which to work. He then notified the HSE about the unsafe work.

The HSE visited the harbour and found that no gas monitor was used to measure available oxygen in the tank and no gas-free certificate was obtained before beginning the work. An electric fan was being used to blow the fumes out of the tank, and a second fan was also put outside in the net store. Neither fan had an extraction hose, which meant they just blew the fumes about.

Both men were unsupervised and unfamiliar with the tank work they were undertaking. C & L Marine also failed to considered the need to provide rescue equipment, such as harnesses and lifelines, or other appropriate emergency arrangements.

The firm was issued a Prohibition Notice, which ordered the repairs to stop until a safe system of working in a confined space was created.

HSE inspector David Cory said: “C & L Marine’s lack of preparation for this work showed very significant failings, which could have led to tragedy – they should have been well aware of the risks cleaning and then welding in the diesel fuel tank would have posed.

“The tank should have been thoroughly steam-cleaned or jet-washed, instead of being bucketed out and mopped with rags. There was no test for the presence of noxious or flammable gases, or whether there was sufficient oxygen in the tank before the men began work.

“If the diesel fuel residues had been sufficiently heated they would have created fumes which could have led to an explosion, or fire. Ventilation was either absent, or woefully inadequate.”

C & L Marine appeared at Plymouth Magistrates’ Court on 18 March and pleaded guilty to breaching reg.3(1) of the MHSWR 1999, and reg.3(1)9(a), reg.4(2) and reg.5(1) of the Confined Spaces Regulations 1997. It was fined a total of £20,000 and ordered to pay £23,000 in costs.

After the hearing, inspector Cory added: “All employers involved in confined-space working must consider their activities properly, train and equip staff sufficiently, and reduce and control risks as much as possible. All confined-space work is high risk and, if not properly controlled, can go badly wrong, very quickly.”

 Source

Contractor prosecuted over unsupported deep excavation 

Basi Construction Limited has been fined for unsafe excavation work at a building site in Rochester, Kent in 2012.

Southern Water and Medway Council witnessed work underway in a 3m deep excavation into soft clay that was totally unsupported. Two plywood sheets and a single strut had been added when they returned a day later there was still a significant risk.

HSE investigated and prosecuted the company for failing to properly plan the excavation, and for endangering workers by leaving unsupported sidewalls that were liable to collapse.

Magistrates were told that although there was no excavation collapse and no injuries, workers could have been killed had the clay sidewalls given way. The excavation was made to connect a single new-build home to an existing sewer. 

Medway Council highways visited in response to complaints about work in the footpath outside the site. The council notified HSE and described in detail what they had seen, including someone climbing from the excavation. Tools and equipment could also be seen at the bottom.

The excavation had been backfilled by the time a HSE inspector arrived on site, but the witness evidence proved damning. 

Basi Construction Limited, of Rochester, was fined £8,000 and ordered to pay £8,797 in costs for a single breach of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 Regulation 13(2) which requires that the contractor to plan, manage and monitor construction work so that it is carried out without risks to health and safety.

After the hearing HSE Inspector Melvyn Stancliffe said:

“It was pure good luck that the excavation didn’t collapse, and had it done so anyone working at the bottom would have more than likely been killed before they could be rescued.

Before any excavation begins contractors must ask themselves: ‘What will the consequences be if this fails? And what precautions do I therefore need to put in place to prevent that from happening?’

Sidewalls may look solid, but an unsupported wall will always collapse, and you need to work on the basis that it could give way in the next few seconds, not tomorrow or next week.

Proper planning is essential, as is the need to ensure that only competent personnel undertake excavation work, and that all work is closely supervised. Despite this particular excavation being backfilled when HSE arrived to inspect it, we were satisfied that Basi Construction failed in this regard, and compromised safety as a result.”

Source

A Derbyshire company has been fined for putting employees in danger by allowing them to work in confined spaces without any relevant training or safety measures.

Derby Crown Court heard today (22 November) that SAPA Profiles UK Ltd, which makes aluminium profiles, regularly sent workers into a 5.5 metre deep pit to retrieve waste aluminium that had collected at the bottom.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) visited the company's Sawpit Lane premises in Tibshelf in May 2008 and served an Improvement Notice after discovering that work in the pit was not carried out in accordance with a safe system of work, which should have included the provision of adequate training. The company complied with the Notice and developed a safe system of work, including providing training to some of their workers, but in August 2011 a member of staff contacted HSE to raise concerns about the way in which confined spaces work was carried out.

During a follow-up visit on 31 August 2011, HSE inspectors found the company had a written safe system of work, but it was not being adhered to. The policy stated staff should be trained when either working in the pit or observing from the top, however that training was never provided to a number of the workers involved.

In addition, some of the harnesses intended to be worn by workers when accessing the pit had not been thoroughly examined to ensure that they were safe to use despite being reminded by their insurer of this requirement. It was also found that a gas analyser, used to ensure that the atmosphere in the pit was safe, had not been calibrated to ensure its accuracy.

SAPA Profiles UK Limited, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 for failing to protect its workforce. Derby Crown Court fined the company £30,000 and ordered it to pay full costs of £12,348.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Scott Wynne said:

"Every time someone went into the pit, a permit to work had to be completed giving details of how the work was to be carried out. Of 147 permits examined, 97 had clear issues yet those issues were never identified or followed up.

"Conditions in the pit are very unpleasant. It is a hot, humid, dark, confined space where people could easily have become disorientated or overcome by the heat. There was a significant risk to workers from oxygen deficiency and from other substances entering the pit.

"It was unacceptable of the company to put staff at risk in this way, especially when bearing in mind the previous enforcement action taken by HSE on precisely the same issue just three years earlier. The company had a duty to make sure its written procedures were being followed, but it failed in that duty. It is extremely fortunate that no serious incidents have occurred in relation to this work."

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^[1]
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."

Source

A recycling company has been ordered to pay £240,000 in fines and costs after a worker was killed at a St Helens factory.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted JFC Plastics Ltd, previously known as Delleve Plastics Ltd, after Steven Bennett died at the company's former premises at the Neills Road Industrial Estate in Bold.

The machine which caused Steven Bennett's death

Liverpool Crown Court heard that Mr Bennett, 31, was last seen alive by his colleagues in the early hours of the morning on 24 November 2005.

The HSE investigation concluded that the most likely cause of his death was that he fell into a machine, used to break apart bales of plastic bottles, while checking to see if it was running smoothly.

The court was told JFC Plastics failed to take steps to prevent access to the machine while it was operating, and failed to ensure power to the machine was cut before maintenance work was carried out.

The company also had an inadequate risk assessment in place and its training, supervision and monitoring of the work did not meet acceptable standards.

JFC Plastics Ltd, of Goldicote Business Park, Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 by failing to ensure the safety of employees who were operating the machine.

The company was sentenced following a Newton hearing in which the judge found that its failings were a significant cause of Mr Bennett's death.

JFC Plastics was fined £140,000 and ordered to pay £100,000 in prosecution costs on 28 September 2012.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE Principal Inspector Tanya Stewart said:

"This was a tragic death that could have been prevented if JFC Plastics had put more thought into the safety of its employees and the adequacy of its working practices.

"Employees regularly entered the machine to remove entangled wire, but there were no safeguards in place to prevent them carrying out this work while the machine's parts were still moving.

"I hope this case will act as a warning to companies to think more carefully about the safety of workers who clean, maintain or repair machines or who clear blockages."

More information on improving safety in the manufacturing industry is available at www.hse.gov.uk/manufacturing.

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."