Company dismantling HGV fined for safety failings

Scunthorpe Magistrates’ Court heard how two employees of R Martinson Limited were dismantling an HGV lorry using a telehandler like a mobile crane for lifting operations.

One employee operated the telehandler to remove a metal rail weighing about 44 kg from the chassis when it struck the second employee, 68-year-old George Henry Johnson. He suffered a traumatic skull fracture that have left him with permanent injuries and reliant on other family members for his care.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) into the incident, which occurred in April 2015, found that the company failed to adequately plan, organize, control and monitor the way in which the operation was undertaken. Using a telehandler to lift and move parts like a mobile crane is a high risk activity and the company failed to apply basic principles of health and safety management to reduce the risk of serious personal injury.

R Martinson Limited of Havering, The Bays Shore Road, Garthorpe, North Lincolnshire, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, and was fined £53,300 and ordered to pay costs of £1,293.10.