Scrap metal firm fined over death
16/04/2010
A scrap metal company has been forced to pay out more than a quarter of a million pounds after a lorry driver was hit by a crushed car and died while delivering to the site.
Adrian Turner was crushed by a metal bale which rolled off a scrapheap in Newport, South Wales, as he brought waste metal to the site.
The owners of the scrap metal yard, Sims Group UK Ltd, have been fined £200,000 and ordered to pay £57,700 in costs following a prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive.
Mr Turner, 50, from Wolverhampton, was delivering scrap to the site on April 28, 2008, and was directed to deliver his load to the metal shredder area of the yard.
He left his cab and was opening the rear doors to his trailer when the one-and-a-half-ton metal bale on the scrap pile came loose and rolled six metres down the slope straight into him.
He had not received any site safety induction from Sims UK Ltd and was following instructions given by Sims operatives when he was killed.
Sims Group UK Ltd, of Long Marston, Stratford upon Avon, pleaded guilty to a charge under Section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 at Cardiff Crown Court.
HSE inspector Sarah Baldwin-Jones said: "Mr Turner was struck from behind by the metal bale – a crushed motor vehicle – weighing some one and a half tons. Unfortunately, death or serious injury was an inevitable consequence."
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