Prosecuting, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) told Stafford Crown Court that, on 23 April 2014, an employee of John Pointon and Sons Limited accessed a compartment within an animal waste trailer to free animal waste and was overcome by the gases.
The Stoke Sentinel reported that driver William James was unloading carcasses from a truck during his night shift.
Mr James was overcome by hydrogen sulfide – produced by the rotting carcasses – and a lack of oxygen.
In a statement he said: “It felt like only a few seconds when I started to feel dizzy.
“That’s the last I remember.”
Subsequently, two further employees entered the waste compartment and were also overcome by the gases, as they tried to help their colleague.
Mr James suffered bruising and a head wound which required stitches, while another worker spent five days in hospital.
The court heard that:
- employees would regularly have to climb over the side of a trailer to dislodge carcasses, but there was no instruction given to staff on how to enter a trailer;
- the firm did not class a trailer as a ‘confined space’ and no risk assessment was carried out;
- the preventable incident could have resulted in fatalities; and
- the company had been prosecuted twice before for two fatal incidents which involved confined space entry within a processing plant.
John Pointon and Sons Limited, of Bones Lane, Cheddleton, Stoke-on-Trent, was fined £250,000 with costs of £37,362 after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, Regulation 3(1)(a) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 and Regulation 5(1) of the Confined Spaces Regulations 1997.
4 seriously injured and 2 deaths. All involving confined spaces. And this firm are still trading. What does this tell employers? Carry on and do what you like as long as you can pay the fines.
Surely some one should have faced criminal charges by now?
Maybe under the new sentence guidelines, directors of firms like this could and should be imprisoned. Complete failure to have a suitable safe working systems for financial gains and very little regard for employees safety.