HEALTH AND SAFETY
Page 8
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
Walkers and Omnichem fined for driver's toxic death
roger. brow nfar hi.co u k FOOD GIANT Walkers and chemical distribution company Omnichem have been fined a total of £350,000 after a truck driver was killed by a cloud of toxic gas.
A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecution at Leicester Crown Court heard how Omnichem worker John Marriott. 59, of Scalford, near Melton Mowbray, drove his truck containing four steel tanks — two with sodium chlorite and two containing Hydrochloric Acid — to the starch reclamation unit at the Walkers site in Beaumont Leys, Leicester, in July 2006.
Marriott inadvertently mixed up the hoses on the tanks while transferring the two chemicals from the vehicle, causing them to produce green fumes of chlorine dioxide, He was taken to hospital, but died from the effects of the gas a month later.
Walkers pleaded guilty to breaching Sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was fined £200,000. It was also ordered to pay costs of £38,971.
Melton Mowbrav-based Omnichem admitted the same charges and was fined £150,000 and ordered to pay £29,229 costs. HSE inspector Sue Thompson says: "There were insufficient written procedures for deliveries of chemicals and for the receipt of chemicals, and the tanks were also insufficiently labelled.
A spokesperson for Walkers says: -Walkers Snack Foods is committed to ensuring the health and safety for all our employees, customers and visitors, and prompt remedial steps were taken immediately after this incident to ensure this does not happen on one of our sites ever again.
-The judge noted in his summing up that our employees did everything they could on the day to help Mr Marriott."
Omnichem was unavailable for comment as CM went to press.