A BARNSLEY recycling firm which admitted breaches of health and safety legislation following the death of a worker has been fined £216,000 and ordered to pay another £31,000 in costs.
Plevin and Son Ltd operates a site at Hazlehead, near Penistone, and a lorry driver died after falling from a four metre high platform while preparing his truck to be loaded in 2014.
As a result, the Health and Safety Executive launched an investigation and brought a prosecution against the firm, which admitted two offences and was sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court on Monday.
Paul Littlewood, 46, from Manchester, had been removing a sheet covering his lorry’s trailer when he fell from a gantry sustaining fatal head injuries.
Although there were hand rails on the gantry, they were of no value because workers needed both hands to operate the equipment to move the trailer’s sheeting.
Judge Bartfield, who sentenced the company, told the hearing a safety wire had been in place on the gantry but was worn and it was “unclear whether, if he had used it, it would have impeded his fall”.
The company had realised the year before Mr Littlewood’s fall that it needed to look at the systems and controls in place in relation to employees who worked at height, he said, stating: “It is apparent no appropriate risk assessment took place.”
Plevin admitted two breaches of health and safety rules and the hearing was told a harness system, similar to those used by mountaineers, was now in place.
Sentencing guidelines suggested a ‘starting point’ of more than £400,000 for a fine relating to the circumstances surrounding Mr Littlewood’s death, but that figure was reduced as a result of the guilty plea and the firm having no history of similar incidents.
However, the incident was said to fall into a ‘high’ category of culpability and the breach had extended over a long period of time - at least months.
The judge said that although the company’s turnover was £23m a year, profit was around £1m a year and that “involves ploughing significant sums back into the business”.
“It is not a company which seems to me to be thriving on huge profits,” he said.
The firm is based at Ashton Under Lyne and opened its base at Hazlehead, on part of the old Hepworth’s site, several years ago.
It processes scrap wood to produce biomass fuel for power station consumption.
After the hearing, HSE inspector Tim Johnson said: “The incident could have easily been prevented by providing either automatic sheeting or self-closing gates similar to those at the access point on mobile elevated work platforms, coupled with a double guard rail along the length of the work platform.
“It is a requirement to carry out suitable planning for significant risks such as working at height.
“The sheeting and un-sheeting of lorry trailers is clearly working at height and the company should have identified the risks and control measures necessary to prevent this fatal accident.”
