The steelmaker was fined £100,000 and ordered to pay £9,908.50 costs after the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted the company over the incident which happened in 2008. The mobile crane was being used at the steelworks when it overturned with the operator inside.

Sheffield Crown Court heard that although the crane had been fitted with 'safe working load' alarms following concerns over its stability, they were not switched on because the driver had not been trained on using them. When the crane became overloaded no alarms sounded and it overturned. The company pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

After the hearing, a HSE inspector said:

"This is a serious health and safety breach by a company that globally employs tens of thousands of people which could easily have led to people being killed. The operator was extremely lucky to escape with only minor injuries.

Today's hearing highlights the importance of having an effective system in place for managing health and safety to stop easily avoidable incidents. In this case the measures in place were simply inadequate, in particular, there was a substantial failure to provide enough suitable training."