£100,000 fine for construction company after fatal injury

Death could have been avoided

A Yorkshire-based construction company has been fined £100,000 by the Health and Safety Executive after a 23-year old employee was killed working on a building site. JN Bentley Ltd, headquartered in Skipton, pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 after an investigation into the accident resulted in a prosecution being brought.

The accident occurred in 2007 when JN Bentley employees were working on a construction project for Bradford Council. At the time of the accident, which occurred late on a Friday just before the workers were due to finish for the weekend, several concrete bags were being moved using one of the excavators on the site. This excavator had been equipped with a block grab attachment to allow it to lift a pallet laden with the cement bags, however whilst it was moving the pallet, the cement bags that had been piled on it fell to the ground.

Attempting to free the pallet from the jaws of the block grab, one employee took hold of it and tried to pull it out. However as the pallet came free, the jaws of the block grab closed, trapping the worker by his head and causing him to suffer massive crushing injuries which, despite medical treatment, lead to his death the next day.

After being notified of this tragic incident which left a young man dead, the Health and Safety Executive launched an investigation into the circumstances of the accident. The investigation’s findings revealed that the grab attachment on the excavator had been used against the instructions of the manufacturer and that it was not actually suitable for lifting the pallet and the cement bags safely as it had been designed to move rectangular loads such as packs of bricks. Further, the construction company had not put in place a safe system to move the concrete bags around the construction site, using more appropriate machinery such as a forklift truck.

JN Bentley was fined £106,250 for breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was also ordered to pay £90,000 in legal costs. Speaking about the investigation, Dave Redman, the HSE’s Principal Inspector said, “The firm made a fundamental error by using a block grab to lift and move pallets and this resulted in the tragic death of a young man. This use was very clearly advised against by the manufacturers and the risks should have been understood by the company… It shouldn’t take a death to remind employers that failure to properly plan the work can have tragic consequences… If employers take their eye off the ball, it’s all too easy for otherwise safe and routine tasks to turn into unacceptable risks.”

Compensation claims after catastrophic workplace injuries

After a member of your family has suffered a catastrophic or even a fatal injury at work it can be difficult to make sense of the circumstances behind the accident that caused their injuries or cost their lives. If you believe that another person was responsible for the accident, or their employer’s negligence was to blame, then our specialist work and fatal accident compensation solicitors may be able to help. For a consultation about a claim contact us today. All enquiries will be handled sensitively and in strictest confidence.