Aeroplane manufacturer Airbus has been fined following the death of an employee who was crushed between a tractor and a fertiliser spreader at the firm’s plant in Broughton. The company was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after an investigation found Donny Williams and his co-workers had received no training on how to…
The TUC is warning today (Monday) on Workers’ Memorial Day that the government’s persistent ideological attacks on key health and safety legislation threaten even more accidents, injuries and deaths at work. In a new report published today Toxic, Corrosive and Hazardous: The government’s record on health and safety, the TUC reveals that in the last four…
A worker had his lower body crushed when a stack of bales, each weighting a quarter of a tonne, collapsed on him as he sorted waste in a processing shed in Somerset. Aleksandras Fomenkouas, 40, who lived in Bridgwater at the time, suffered serious injuries in the incident on 8 September 2011 while working at…
New laws designed to recover the estimated £44 million annual cost of investigating workplace accidents could cost Scottish businesses thousands of pounds, according to Central Insurance, Scotland’s largest independent commercial insurance broker. Central Insurance said the Health and Safety Executive’s new cost recovery rules underlined the need for Scottish companies to put in place comprehensive…
A Stoke firm, which designs and manufactures trailers for commercial vehicles, has been sentenced after a worker was seriously injured when he was crushed underneath a lorry when the tuck-away tail-lift closed on him, reports the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). Mark Dimmock, 28, from Stoke-on-Trent, had only been working for Don-Bur (Bodies & Trailers)…
Farmers are being warned about the risk of electrocution while at work. Cornish Mutual is highlighting the dangers of electrocution and severe electric shock as part of its FarmSafe campaign in a bid to cut the number of deaths and serious injuries in agriculture. On average, two people are killed by electricity every year in…
Over a thousand fatalities a year on British roads involve someone at work British company directors risk corporate manslaughter and Health and Safety charges, with unlimited fines and publicity orders , every time an illegal driver gets behind the wheel UK drivers are facing increasing danger on the roads as thousands of workers are driving…
At Langanside Crown Court Walter C Campbell Joinery has been fined £2K plus £1,750 in costs over a fatal accident at its premises in Ballinamallard, County Fermanagh, in February 2010 in which an electrician died in a fall from a caged platform being raised by a forklift. Investigation found that the platform had not been…
There’s a fascinating TV programme on the National Geographic Channel I enjoy called Air Crash Investigation. To be honest, if you’re a frequent flyer like me, it’s maybe not that good an idea to watch it. After all, it takes an in-depth look at some of the worst ever passenger aircraft disasters. Not always reassuring!…
A 45-year old linesman was electrocuted as he worked to remove a transformer in Diss, Norfolk, on 9th November 2007. The transformer was on a pole and the deceased was in a mobile elevating platform at a height of 5 metres when the transformer contacted a live conductor, resulting in his electrocution. Fuses supplying the…
HSE say a fatal accident in which a man fell from a wall as he worked on CCTV cameras above the M5 could have been prevented if it wasn’t for the major failings in the way his work was planned. An HSE official commented after the deceased’s employer, Serco Ltd of Hook, Hampshire, and principal…
According to the latest figures released by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) the number of workplace fatalities in the UK has significantly increased over the past year. In 2010-11, the number of workplace deaths in the UK rose to 171 people, compared to 147 in 2009-2010. While the number of deaths in the agricultural…
teenage worker severed part of his hand while operating a vertical panel saw on which he had received little training, a court heard. Lewis Maker, 18-years-old at the time of the incident, was using the panel saw to cut a piece of board, which he was holding steady with his left hand. As he operated…
The HSE has recently published its workplace fatal injury statistics for Great Britain of 2010/2011. HSE notes that the underlying five-year trend for workplace fatalities continues downward. The number of such deaths in 2010/11, 171 workers killed, is lower than the five year average. But despite the downward trend there are a number of aspects…
The vast majority of compensation claims made by workers as a consequence of being injured at work or made ill by work are small value. It is a fact that the legal costs incurred in bringing and defending the claim often far outweigh the amount of damages in dispute. It is not unheard of for…