A case reported in the Health and Safety Review has an interesting lesson for Employers in relation to Business Safety. Imposing a fine of €20,000 on a construction company, a judge in the case of DPP for HSA v Gibbons Civil Engineering Limited) said companies needed to take safety seriously and not just generate documents which may never be read.
The case was taken as a prosecution after a worker was killed by a swinging excavator bucket. Apart from issues relating to workers being within the slewing radius of an excavator bucket, there was evidence concerning training and the misuse of a Safe Pass card and an “illegitimate” CSCS card.
HSA inspector Tom Murphy told the court that the worker was killed when he was struck by the bucket of an excavator, and that worker only started work with his employer a day before the accident. The inspector explained that the accident happened while workers were trying to level a manhole box placed in an excavation. The operator of the excavating machine was asked to rest the bucket (which weighted one tonne) on the box to level it. As the operator was swinging the bucket, the worker and his supervisor were in the radius of its slew. It was, the inspector said, a significant breach of health and safety regulations that the men were allowed to work in close proximity to the bucket’s slewing radius. “Workers should be kept out of the radius”. If they had been, it is unlikely the accident would have happened.
Safety Documentation
The court heard that the company had a safety statement and a risk assessment, but that it did not deal with work at the location of the accident. Inspector Murphy said a separate task-specific risk assessment for the particular activity should have been prepared. The court was told that when the worker started work on the site two days before the accident, he was given 20 minutes induction training by the main contractor. On the Monday following the fatal accident, workers were given two and a half hours training. Responding to questions from defence counsel, Inspector Murphy said that the Safe Pass card which the worker produced when he started work was his brother’s. The CSCS card produced by the worker “was not legitimate”, the inspector told the court.
Decision
Imposing sentence, Judge Patrick McCartan noted that the company had safety documentation, but the “documents were not brought to the worker’s attention”. He said that companies need to take safety seriously and not just generate safety documents which may never be read. He also noted that the Safe Pass and CSCS cards presented by the worker when he started work were never checked by the employer.
Imposing a fine of €20,000, Judge McCartan, who gave the company 12 months to pay, said safety needs to be taken seriously. He also ordered the company to pay the prosecution’s costs of €17,342. The HSA’s costs were €12,202 and the DPP’s €5,140.
