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Search forPlymouth City Council fined £75,000 for worker's death
Friday, November 21, 2008, 15:05
Rory Littley died on February 19 last year when he was crushed between a forklift truck and a heavy goods vehicle while unloading wheelie bins.
At Plymouth Crown Court yesterday the council was found to have been in breach of its duty to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing at work of all its employees.
The court heard that a series of health and safety blunders, including a lack of training and supervision, led to the death of the 22-year-old who was father to an 18-month old daughter and was engaged to be married.
The council ignored an offer from the manufacturer of the bins to show members of staff how to safely unload them and no risk assessment was carried out.
On the morning of his death, Mr Littley was at the council's Prince Rock depot to help unload a new delivery of wheelie bins.
Three people were due to be unloading around 610 bins from the back of a lorry. The bins were organised into stacks of ten, weighing around 136 kilos, and strapping was used to keep them together.
Mr Littley stood on the prongs of a forklift truck and was lifted up to the rear of the lorry to begin cutting the strapping.
The court heard this "dangerous" practice had been used on at least six other occasions.
Mr Littley stood on the truck and another member of staff, who was not trained to drive this particular type of forklift, climbed in to operate the vehicle.
The fork lift was rising slowly so the driver of the truck increased the revs but instead of moving the prongs upward, the vehicle moved forward, crushing Mr Littley.
In closing, Judge Gilbert said: "He tried to stop it (the truck) but was unable to do so with the tragic consequences that Mr Littley was crushed between the truck and lorry causing very serious injuries from which he died later that morning."
Judge Gilbert said that a lack of supervision and up to date risk assessments had caused Mr Littley's death.
"His death resulted from what was clearly a dangerous system of work, lack of training, managerial responsibility and supervision," he said.
"The men were left to devise their own system which was dangerous."
Judge Gilbert said the only power he had was to impose a large fine on the council.
"Of course no fine could compensate the family of the deceased," he said.
"The best that can be done is that Plymouth City Council has acknowledged its responsibility for what happened."
When imposing the fine, Judge Gilbert admitted that it will be the people of Plymouth who pay but he said "the fine must reflect the gravity of the offence".
The council was fined £75,000 and made to pay £16,733 costs.
In a statement, Plymouth City Council said: "Nothing we can say today will bring back Rory, but we hope his family draws comfort from the fact we have pleaded guilty to these offences and we are deeply sorry that our failings contributed to his death.
"It was an appalling accident and one that continues to have an impact on Rory's family and friends as well as many of our staff.
"We took immediate and significant steps after this dreadful event to make sure all our working practices are the safest they can be for all our staff.
"We carried a thorough review of all our guidelines, policies and training and continue to do this in an effort to make sure this never happens again."
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