river's death costs waste firm £248,000
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A WASTE MANAGEMENT company has been fined £210,000 after a driver was crushed to death between his truck and a bulldozer at a Northamptonshire landfill site.
SITA UK pleaded guilty at Northampton Crown Court to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 following the death of Gary Carter. 32, at the company's Cranford facility near Kettering in January 2002 The company was also ordered to pay full costs of £38,000 following the prosecution brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
Carter, of Kidwelly, Dyfed. arrived at the site to empty his refuse truck, the court heard. After being towed to the tipping area by a bulldozer due to the wet weather and soft ground conditions. Carter discharged part of his load. To shed the This case underlines how vital it is to ensure that new working arrangements are risk-assessed before being implemented. The fact that this had not taken place in this case must have influenced the size of penalty handed down by the court. Advice on risk assessment can be found on the HSE website: www.hse.gov.uk rest. he had to move forward, but his lorry became bogged down in soft ground.
Drivers of a compactor and bulldozer at the site both tried to help Carter, but without communicating with each other. The compactor driver radioed Carter to say he would drive up behind and push the truck forward with his own vehicle. At the same time, the bulldozer reversed up to the front of Carter's lorry to give him a tow.
When Carter was attaching a towrope from the bulldozer to the front of his lorry, the compactor started to push the truck forward, crushing him between his vehicle and the bulldozer.
According to the prosecution, new working arrangements had been introduced before the accident without having been properly risk assessed. SITA had also not defined the supervisory roles for stall. at the facility and rules were ambiguous.
A spokesman for SITA UK says: 'We have co-operated with the authorities and we are pleased that the judge accepted the mitigation presented on behalf of the company. We acknowledge that this accident should have never happened and we have taken numerous measures to ensure it doesn't happen again."