Worker in court after waste site death
HSE takes unusual decision to prosecute shovel driver rather than his employer for safety failings
THE driver of a loading shovel has been sentenced for safety failings after he reversed his vehicle into a lorry trailer at a Cambridgeshire waste site, crushing and killing its driver.
Mark Nyland, from Sutton in Ashfield, in Nottinghamshire, was hit by the tracked loader as he was closing the doors at the rear of his HGV after emptying it of waste and sweeping out debris in a ‘safe area’ at the site. He suffered severe multiple injuries.
In an unusual move, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) decided to prosecute loader driver Kenneth Miller, an employee of Waste Recycling Group Ltd, following the incident at Milton landfill site on 5 January 2012.
Cambridge Magistrates’ Court was told that Mr Miller had been helping Mr Nyland to dump the waste from his trailer. Mr Miller then towed the trailer to a ‘safe area’ so that Mr Nyland, an HGV driver for a haulage company in Shepshed, Leicestershire, could sweep out the back and tail bar area.
Mr Miller then returned to using the loading shovel to level off the ruts in the ground using the bucket of the loader in a series of forward and reverse movements. As he pulled backwards at an angle, the vehicle crushed Mr Nyland against the back of the trailer, causing fatal injuries.
The HSE found that Kenneth Miller had clearly failed to take reasonable care while operating a large and potentially dangerous vehicle. He was sentenced to 24 weeks in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to pay a contribution towards costs of £600 after admitting a breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.
Mr Miller will also be tagged with a home curfew between 10pm and 6am for three months.
After the hearing, HSE Inspector Roxanne Barker described the incident as an entirely preventable tragedy that had devastated Mr Nyland’s partner, parents and family.
‘The HSE took the rather unusual decision in this case to prosecute an individual rather than a company because it was clear that Kenneth Miller had totally failed to take the care that was necessary when operating a large vehicle on a busy waste site,’ she said.
‘Reversing vehicles have been the cause of many fatalities in workplaces over the years and the risks are well known in industry, and obviously companies have a duty to assess risks and implement safety precautions for their sites. But equally, employees have a duty to take reasonable care for the safety of others, particularly when they are operating dangerous machinery.’
HSE statistics for 2012/3 show there were 10 fatal injuries to waste and recycling workers compared to an average of six deaths in the past five years.
