Companies fined for life-changing injuries
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TWO LONDON companies have been ordered to pay nearly £110,000 in fines and costs, after a skip lorry driver sustained lifechanging injuries when he fell down a processing chute at a waste recycling plant.
In a prosecution brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the Old Bailey was told how the agency driver, who was 49 at the time of the incident, and employed by ICSL Accord, was tipping rubbish into a deep waste chute at Hornsey Street Waste and Recycling Centre in Islington in December 2007 The driver, who does not wish to be named, fell 10 metres from the rear of the vehicle down the chute.
He was treated at the Whittington Hospital for fractures on two vertebrae and was in a spine brace for nine months, rendering him unable to work.
An independent medical report suggested the man will never be able to return to his career as an LGV driver.
HSE prosecuted both ICSL Accord and the centre's operators, London Waste, for serious safety failings. Both companies were seen to have failed to co-operate and co-ordinate site activities.
London Waste was fined £40,000 and ordered to pay £34,265 in costs, after being found guilty of breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
ICSL Accord was fined £24,000 with £11,241 in costs, after pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the same legislation.
Insufficient training The HSE investigation found that ICSL failed to give some employees sufficient training in how to safely tip rubbish at the site, while London Waste had failed to monitor noncompliance of site safety rules.