Firm fined after reversing mini-digger injures worker
Injuries due to unsafe system of work results in prosecution for national plant-hire company
A NATIONAL plant-hire company has been fined for safety failings after an employee was struck and injured by a reversing mini-digger at a north London depot.
The injured worker, who does not want to be named, broke a bone just below his knee and suffered extensive tissue damage to his foot and ankle in the incident at One Call Hire Ltd, in Enfield, on 18 December 2012.
The company, which has eight depots across the UK including the Enfield head office, was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after an investigation identified concerns with an unsafe system of work.
Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that the injured worker was part of a team cleaning and preparing a mini-digger for shipment to Australia.
During the work the machine was inadvertently put into reverse and struck the worker. In trying to release him, the vehicle was again reversed, causing him additional injuries.
A second employee had a lucky escape because he was under the vehicle at the time, but managed to move away just in time.
HSE inspectors established that there was no agreed system of work for the refurbishment and cleaning activity, and the vehicle should have been isolated to ensure that it could not move.
The court was told that One Call workers devised their own system of work that was inherently unsafe, and that none of them had received any formal training.
The company was fined £4,000 and ordered to pay £1,036 in costs after pleading guilty to a single breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
After the hearing HSE Inspector Chris Tilley said: ‘It is clear that there was no safe system of work in place for work in and around the digger, either of a formal or informal nature.
‘Had the work been properly assessed, and measures taken to isolate power to the engine and make it safe, then the worker could have avoided injury.
‘One Call Hire Ltd have accepted their failings in this regard, and we hope this prosecution sends a clear message to others.’
