Two companies fined over forklift driver death

Two companies have been prosecuted following the death of telescopic forklift truck driver who was crushed and killed in 2003.

MB Plastics and Birse Integrated Solutions were sentenced at Manchester Crown Court on 30 June.

The deceased man's employer, Warrington-based MB Plastics pleaded guilty to an offence under health and safety legislation, and was subsequently fined £150,000 and ordered to pay costs of over £24,000.

The principal contractor for the project, Birse Water, now trading as Birse Integrated Solutions, also pleaded guilty, and was fined £50,000 and ordered to pay costs of over £41,000.

The court heard the vehicle's off-side cab window normally acted as a guard, but had been damaged during a lifting operation five weeks before the fatality. At the time of the accident, the cab window was missing entirely.

There were no witnesses to the accident, but Judge Peter Lakin said the most likely explanation was that the deceased man had leaned out of the cab window and come into contact with the joystick, bringing the arm of the forklift truck down onto him.

Passing sentence, Judge Lakin said: “The harsh reality of this case is that, in relation to this contract, MB completely failed to have any proper regard to their health and safety obligations. This directly led to the development of an unsafe and sloppy system of work in relation to the use of telehandlers.”

He added: “Birse, as principal contractors on site, failed to implement their own systems and accordingly failed to properly monitor what MB were doing. This lack of monitoring allowed MB's disregard for health and safety to continue over a number of weeks. In short, Birse failed in their supervisory role.”