(Australia)

The owner of a Picton sandblasting and spray-painting business has been fined $47,000 and ordered to pay $14,874 in costs after being found guilty of six environmental offences, including two of causing pollution.

David Robert Evans, 70 years old of Bunbury, owns and operates Geographe Sandblasting, which has carried out abrasive blasting and spray-painting at its premises in Picton since 2018.

Since that time, witnesses from the business next door have reported 17 separate events involving either paint overspray, paint odour emissions, or abrasive blasting dust drifting onto their premises.

In June 2019, inspections by officers from the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER) and the City of Bunbury found evidence of conditions which would allow paint and blasting medium to escape from the premises. Orders were issued to the business to rectify problems with waste extraction and containment, however there was evidence that the pollution continued.

After further reports of pollution from the premises, DWER inspectors placed surveillance cameras, dust monitors, and a glass overspray panel at the business next door to Geographe Sandblasting. The evidence gathered by these methods formed part of the case against Mr. Evans.

He pleaded guilty to six offences, two of causing pollution, and the remainder of breaching various specific regulations.

This is valid as of 19th September 2023.

Following a case brought by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), the owner and skipper of a vessel has received a 12-month suspended sentence after a 21-year-old was lost overboard in the middle of the Atlantic.

On 14 February 2016, Michael Johnson was onboard the rowing boat Toby Wallace, as part of a world record attempt to cross the Atlantic Ocean in 32 days.

Just after midnight on the 16th day (15 February) Mr Johnson was washed overboard. Despite the best efforts of the crew, Mr Johnson could not be saved.

The Toby Wallace belonged to Simon Chalk, who has pleaded guilty to failing to take all reasonable measures to ensure the safe operation of his vessel.

Following the lengthy and complex investigation conducted by the MCA, Chalk was charged under the Merchant Shipping Act 1995 at Bristol Crown Court.

The court heard that there was hardly any training for the crew of eight who took on the record challenge, there was no requirement to complete sea survival training, and there was minimal time to get acquainted with the Toby Wallace.

The crew had not had a safety briefing on the vessel about her equipment, including personal floatation devices and beacons, the court heard.

On 12 September, Chalk was sentenced to 12 months in prison, suspended for 12 months, and was ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work and 10 Rehabilitation Activity Requirement days.

This is valid as of 19th September 2023.

(Australia)

One of Western Australia’s largest producers of vegetables has been prosecuted and fined for using excess water on its market garden properties north of Perth.

T&C Do and Son Pty Ltd operates a horticultural business growing vegetables on four properties in Caraban and Woodridge. The company is the state’s third largest vegetable producer and supplies its produce to major supermarkets.

In September 2021, officers from the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation attended four properties undertaking routine water meter readings from bores used to extract water from the Gingin Groundwater Area. While on one of the properties officers observed that water was being taken from a bore and crops were being irrigated. The officers identified that despite the fact the bore was operating, the water meter was failing to record that water was being taken. Further, it was observed that this meter had not recorded any water as having been taken since the previous reading almost four weeks prior.

In Joondalup Magistrates Court, the company and two of its directors Phung Tran Do (73 years old of Carabooda) and Tuyet Chau Huynh (43 years old of Carabooda) pleaded guilty to four offences relating to water overuse under the Rights in Water and Irrigation Act. It was determined that the water licence was exceeded by 12% over a period of 12 months, which works out to a total overuse of approximately 170,529 kilolitres, the equivalent of 68 Olympic swimming pools.

The company was fined $6,000. In relation to the two directors, a fine of $2,000 each was imposed as the main penalty and an additional $22,000 each as a daily penalty. The total of all fines imposed was $54,000 as well as court costs of $1,239.90.

This is valid as of 19th September 2023.

A commercial printing company has been fined £100,000 after an employee’s hand was crushed by a laminating machine.

The man had been working for Celloglas Limited at the firm’s site at Cross Green Industrial Estate in Leeds.

He was attempting to fix a laminating machine on 25 November 2020 when his right hand was drawn into the device and crushed between two rollers. The worker, who was 31 at the time, realised the machine had broken while he was feeding the device with paper.

The incident led to the man’s right hand sustaining soft tissue crush injures as well as nerve damage and contact burns to his right wrist. The injuries to his hand meant the man could not drive for seven months following the incident and also led to him suffering with anxiety and PTSD.

Investigating, the HSE found the laminating machine was not adequately guarded and that the company failed to review existing risk assessments for the machine which required the production of a safe system of work.

Celloglas Ltd, of Exeter Way, Theale Commercial Estate, Theale, Reading, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 (1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was fined £100,000 and ordered to pay £5,165.09 in costs.

This is valid as of 11th September 2023.

Network Rail has been fined £6.7m after admitting a series of failings which led to the deaths of three people in a train crash near Stonehaven.

The Aberdeen to Glasgow service derailed at Carmont in August 2020 after hitting a landslide following heavy rain. Three people died and six were injured.

Network Rail pleaded guilty, admitting failing to:

• Impose a speed restriction.
• Warn the driver that part of the track was unsafe.
• Ask him to reduce his speed.

Driver Brett McCullough, 45, conductor Donald Dinnie, 58, and passenger Christopher Stuchbury, 62, died in the crash.

The judge, Lord Matthews, said no penalty he could impose compensate for the loss suffered by the families of those who died and of the six people on board the train who were injured. He said opportunities to take appropriate action may have been missed and that the level of culpability was high, with a large number of people exposed to risk over the years.

The weather conditions before the crash had been “unprecedented”.

Lord Matthews added that the rail operator would have been fined £10m if the case had gone to trial.

The High Court in Aberdeen heard that the six people injured in the crash were left with physical and mental scars.

The train hit a landslide near Stonehaven in August 2020 after heavy rain in an area where a drainage system had been incorrectly installed. The 06:38 service to Glasgow had been unable to complete its journey due to the conditions and was returning to Aberdeen when the accident happened.

A recording of the driver showed he queried with a signaller if any reduced speed was needed to return north. He was told everything was fine for normal speed. The train struck debris from a landslide on the track, derail and collided with a bridge parapet.

This is valid as of 11th September 2023.

A waste management firm has been fined a total of £3 million following the deaths of two workers in separate incidents.

Michael Atkin and Mark Wheatley died following incidents in 2019 and 2020 respectively.

The families of both men say they are devastated after losing their loved ones.

The HSE investigated both incidents and subsequently prosecuted Valencia Waste Management Limited, formerly known as Viridor Waste Management Limited.

Michael

Michael, from Wetherby, lost his life while collecting a load of wastepaper bales at Valencia Waste Management Limited’s Grendon Road site in Earls Barton, Northamptonshire, on 10 October 2019.

The 63-year-old, a HGV driver employed by RT Keedwell, had been working at the site with a Valencia Waste Management employee, who was using a forklift truck to load Michael’s lorry with rows of bales.

With three rows of bales already loaded on Michael’s lorry, the Valencia employee then attempted to load a fourth row. However, while loading the fourth row, some bales in the third row were dislodged and fell off the lorry, fatally crushing Michael. It seems Michael had been securing the other bales onto the lorry before he was crushed.

Each bale weighed at least 820kg.

A HSE investigation found it was not custom and practice at Valencia Waste Management Limited’s Earls Barton site for bales to be loaded onto lorries by fork lift truck operators at the same time the lorry driver was strapping bales which had previously been loaded onto the lorry flatbed.

Systems were in place for drivers to remain within their cabs, or in some other safe location away from the loading activity, but this was not adhered to at the time of the incident.

Mark

Mark Wheatley died following an incident on 17 January 2020 at the Dartmoor National Park Conservation Works depot in Bovey Tracey, Devon.

The 31-year-old, who was from Sutton Coldfield but lived in Teignbridge, Devon, was an agency worker on his second week. Mark had been using a lorry to lift two skips at the same time, deploying a method called ‘hot swapping’.

However, the skips were not compatible, as they were of different dimensions, and fell at an angle onto the back of Mark’s lorry. He then got onto the lorry bed to rectify the situation but the skips overbalanced and fatally struck him.

John and Sue Wheatley, Mark’s parents, arrived at the scene of the incident following a phone call from their son asking for help.

The HSE’s investigation into this incident found Valencia Waste Management Limited had failed to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment into skip operations meaning that safe systems of work and appropriate training were not implemented, and skips were not maintained in an efficient state. Furthermore, sizes were not displayed on the skips themselves.

The transport and waste and recycling industries continue to contribute to workplace fatalities, with 21 deaths across the two sectors in 2022/23.

Following the incident on 10 October 2019, Valencia Waste Management Limited, of London Road, Stretton-on-Dunsmore, Warwickshire, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The company was fined £1 million at Loughborough Magistrates’ Court on 6 September 2023.

Following the incident on 17 January 2020, Valencia Waste Management Limited pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was fined £2 million at Loughborough Magistrates’ Court on 6 September 2023.

The company was also ordered to pay combined costs of £21,054.

This is valid as of 11th September 2023.

An educational trust has been fined after 15 schoolchildren and their teacher were injured when their classroom ceiling collapsed during a lesson.

Fifteen Year 3 pupils, aged between seven and eight, and their teacher had the ceiling collapse onto them at Rosemead Preparatory School in London, at around 9.30am on 15 November 2021. Tables and chairs being stored in the attic above were among the falling debris.

The children and teacher sustained upper limb fractures, cuts as well as concussion.

Emergency services attended the school on Thurlow Park Road, Dulwich, following the incident. The class teacher and several pupils were taken to hospital for assessment and treatment. There were 16 pupils in the class, but one student was by the doorway when the incident happened.

Investigating, the HSE found items such as desks and chairs were stored in an unsuitable area in the school’s attic. This area was not designed to be load bearing and led to the ceiling collapsing.

The HSE investigation also found Thurlow Educational Trust had failed to:

• Undertake any structural or load bearing capability assessments of the area being used to store the items.
• Assess whether the area in question was appropriate to be used for the storage of these items.

Thurlow Educational Trust, of Thurlow Park Road, Dulwich, London, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) and Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The trust was fined £80,000 and ordered to pay £7,116.31 in costs at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

This is valid as of 7th September 2023.

Pret a Manger has been fined £800,000 after a member of staff was left trapped in sub-zero temperatures for 2.5 hours.

The coffee and sandwich chain pleaded guilty to an offence contrary to the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 at Westminster Magistrates Court, following an investigation by Westminster City Council’s Health and Safety team.

On 29 July 2021, a member of staff at the Victoria Coach Station shop became entrapped in a walk-in commercial freezer typically set to run at around -18 degrees dressed only in jeans and a t-shirt. She tried to keep warm by moving around (although space in the freezer is limited), but after some time she began to feel unwell from the cold, finding that her breathing was becoming restricted and that she was losing sensation in her thighs and feet.

To try and keep warm, she tore up a cardboard box containing chocolate croissants to use as cover from the ventilator blowing out cold air but found that her hands were too cold and painful to break the box apart. The worker was eventually found by a colleague, in a state of distress and believing she was going to die. She was taken to hospital where she was treated for suspected hypothermia.

The investigation established that there was no suitable risk assessment for employees working in temperature-controlled environments. The reporting system used by Pret revealed that there had been a number of call-outs relating to defective or frozen push buttons in the previous 19 months, including a previous occasion at the same remote kitchen in January 2020 when a worker had become entrapped in the walk-in freezer, having been unable to open the door from the inside. On that occasion, the internal door release mechanism was not working.

This is valid as of 4th September 2023.

(Australia)

A construction company has committed to spend almost $200,000 to improve health and safety knowledge and outcomes in the industry after a near miss on a Melbourne building site.

Multiplex Constructions Pty Ltd entered into an Enforceable Undertaking in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court while facing two charges of failing to ensure a workplace was safe and without risks to health.

WorkSafe may reinstate the charges if the undertaking is contravened or withdrawn.

In March 2020, sprinkler pipes were being installed on the 26th floor of a residential tower under construction on Queen Street when a length of pipe detached and fell over the edge of the building, landing close to workers at street level.

Multiplex was accused of failing to ensure debris nets were installed to the perimeter of the building and failing to provide information and instruction to sub-contractors that no work was to be performed without debris nets in place.

As part of the undertaking, the company has agreed to produce a series of health and safety videos for WorkSafe’s web site in relation to the incident and to advertise the videos in an industry magazine.

Multiplex will also fund a tertiary scholarship for a student to complete a Master of Occupational Health and Safety, including a research topic focused on falling objects in the construction industry.

The estimated cost of the undertaking is $195,548.

This is valid as of 29th August 2023.

(New Zealand)

The health and safety of customers must be a priority for businesses, WorkSafe New Zealand says, in light of a horrific sand boarding incident which killed a tourist on a family holiday in the Far North.

Jin Chang Oh was boarding the giant sand dunes at Te Paki when he slid into the path of a moving bus in February 2019. The South Korean national had been on a tour run by Sand Safaris 2014 Limited. His death was witnessed by his wife, son, daughter in law, and granddaughter.

A WorkSafe investigation found the company ineffectively identified and controlled the hazards and risks of sandboarding in that itt had not ensured riders were kept safe from vehicles and did not have an effective traffic management system in place.

The company was charged under sections 36(2) and 48(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, and fined $200,000 and ordered to pay reparations totalling $182,209.33.

Judge Philip Rzepecky said “a clearly identifiable hazard” was overlooked and Mr. Oh was “not to blame at all for what happened to him.”

This is valid as of 29th August 2023.

(Scotland)

A care home where an Alzheimer’s resident died after drinking cleaning fluid has had its £20,000 fine tripled by an appeal court.

Judges ruled the original penalty over David Fyfe’s death was “unduly lenient” and raised it to £60,000.

The 90-year-old died from ammonia poisoning four days after drinking the substance at Tigh-Na-Muirn in Monifieth, Angus, in 2020.

The unlabelled bottle was stored on top of a bathroom cabinet in his room.

The company responsible for the home, Tigh-Na-Muirn Ltd, pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety laws at Dundee Sheriff Court earlier this year.

Imposing the original sentence, Sheriff Jillian Martin-Brown took into account mitigatory factors, including the “extremely challenging circumstances” facing staff during the COVID pandemic. She also described it as an “isolated incident”.

However, lawyers for the Crown argued that too much weight had been given to mitigation, and the sheriff had taken the wrong approach to sentencing.

In a written judgement, appeal court judge Lady Wise wrote: “The sheriff gave inadequate consideration to the degree of risk and the extent of the danger, and failed to recognise that the breach was not an isolated incident but continued over a period of time.

“The offence occurred in a care home when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its full height and when care homes in particular were operating under enormous pressure.

“We also recognise that the offence occurred as a result of staff attempting to ensure that residents were kept safe by minimising items coming in and out of resident’s rooms and possibly spreading infection.

“Nevertheless, we consider that the fine imposed by the sheriff failed to fulfil sufficiently the relevant sentencing objective of punishment and deterrence.”

This is valid as of 29th August 2023.

An Alnmouth hotelier has received a two-year suspended custodial sentence after pleading guilty to charges brought under fire safety legislation.

Mohammed Maten Rohman, 50, owner of The Schooner Hotel, has been sentenced for breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order and a breach of an Enforcement Notice served under the same legislation.

Rohman had admitted 10 breaches of the fire safety order at Newcastle Crown Court at a previous hearing.

The offences related to significant fire safety deficiencies identified during a routine fire safety audit conducted in June 2021. The deficiencies posed a risk of death or serious injury in the event of fire.

Following the audit, fire officers had issued an enforcement notice outlining the measures Rohman needed to take to make the premises safe for guests and employees, but when they returned months later many of the fire deficiencies had not been rectified.

Warren Spencer, prosecuting for Northumberland Fire and Rescue Service, told the court that four previous enforcement notices had been issued to Rohman between 2009 and 2019, in respect of similar fire safety breaches.

The offences included:

• Inadequate compartmentation between the basement cellar and the ground floor.
• Lack of a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment.
• A faulty fire alarm system.
• Unsafe emergency exits and escape routes, including signage left over from the pandemic, which might have sent guests the wrong way in the event of a fire.
• Lack of staff training.
• A breach of the enforcement notice.

Handing down sentence, Judge Earl told Rohman that he had a flagrant history of breaching the regulations, and that there had been an “element of profiteering” instead of making his premises safe.

He sentenced Rohman to 12 months custody for failing to make a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment of the premises, and 12 months custody for breaching the Enforcement Notice, each to run consecutively, but suspended for a period of two years.

He was sentenced to nine months custody for each of the other eight charges, to run concurrently, and suspended for two years. He was ordered to complete a 250-hour community order and pay £24,124 in costs.

This is valid as of 21st August 2023.