Prosecutions

A Newmarket retail display firm has been sentenced after an employee was crushed to death by a stack of glass he was unloading on his first day at work.

An agency worker was busy unloading sheets of glass from a shipping container at the company’s site they fell on him. He died at the scene from the crush injuries.

The firm specialises in point of purchase displays for many retail sectors. The company was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after an investigation into the incident which happened on 18 August 2008.

The employee was living in Peterborough at the time of his death and had just started his new job that morning.

The firm pleaded guilty at Peterborough Crown Court today breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 at an earlier hearing and were fined £80,000 plus £16,914 costs.

The HSE investigation found that the company did not have adequate arrangements in place to unload the glass safely when the incident happened.

Commenting on the incident, a HSE inspector said:

"The tragic death of this young man should never have happened. The company did not carry out their legal duty to ensure the health and safety of people that were working for them - and the result was this horrific incident.

"This was a hazardous manual handling job which involved unloading several large sheets of glass, each of which weighed more than 100kg.

"It should have been planned properly and staff should have been fully trained in what to do. If there had been a safe system of work for this job this tragic death may not have happened."