Jon Walker Timber Products Ltd has been fined £15,000 and ordered to pay £9,850 in costs at Nottingham Magistrates’ Court after one of its employees was run over by a forklift truck.
Magistrates heard that James Abrahams was walking alongside the forklift to steady a pallet of fencing being transported at Jon Walker Timber Products Ltd’s yard at Mansfield Lane, Calverton, when the incident happened on 30 July 2012.
Mr Abrahams suffered leg fractures, broken and dislocated toes and deep grazing. After the incident happened, he was hospitalised for 12 days and unable to work for a number of months. He has not returned to the company.
HSE’s investigation found a number of failings at the timber company. There was no safe system of work for transporting pallets through the yard. Also, a risk assessment was not carried out and employees had not been provided with adequate training, information or instruction. Pedestrians and vehicles should not have been working in such close proximity.
The forklift driver’s licence had expired four months prior to the incident and other unlicensed drivers operated the forklifts.
Magistrates also heard that the firm had been issued with an improvement notice in 2001 for a lack of risk assessments, and written advice had previously been given by HSE on workplace transport issues, including forklift driver training.
Jon Walker Timber Products Ltd, of Bonington Road, Mapperley, pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and regulation 3(1)(a) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
HSE inspector Samantha Farrar said: “This incident could so easily have resulted in a fatality and was entirely preventable.
“Vehicles at work are a major cause of fatal and severe injuries with more than 5,000 incidents involving workplace transport every year. Providing a safe system of work based upon the findings of a suitable risk assessment and adequately training, informing and instructing of staff makes incidents such as this significantly less likely.”
Further information about workplace transport:
www.hse.gov.uk/workplacetransport
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