Construction company fined after road-roller fatality
Company prosecuted and director given suspended sentence following the death of an employee
A CONSTRUCTION company has been fined and a director sentenced after an employee was crushed to death by a road-roller on 13 August 2012.
Swindon Crown Court heard how 56-year-old Andrew Poole, employed by Chippenham-based Globalreward Ltd, was killed as a result of crush injuries to his head when the Ammann AV12 ride-on road-roller he had been operating drove over him.
Mr Poole was reversing the machine when the driver’s seat became separated from the machine, causing him to fall beneath it as it reversed.
The seat was connected to the top of a water tank which sheared off from the body of the machine. Mr Poole fell off whilst still connected to the seat and the roller continued to reverse over him.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the road-roller was in a poor condition and the operator was untrained. Among the safety-critical defects, the HSE found that the seat’s safety cut-out switch, which should have immediately halted the machine, had been defeated and the emergency ‘stop’ button was missing.
Globareward Ltd were fined a total of £10,000, with costs of £30,750, after pleading guilty to an offence under Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
Paul Thomas Andrews, a director of the company, was sentenced to two months in prison suspended for two years. He was also ordered to do 200 hours of community service for a breach of Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
