THE owners of Weston-super-Mare’s Grand Pier have been ordered to pay almost £200,000 in fines and costs and comply with health and safety law after a Lydney woman died when one of the attraction’s advertising boards fell on her.

On the evening of 5 February 2004 over 30 young men and women were trapped by rising tides in Morecambe Bay as they harvested cockles – 23 tragically lost their lives. Most of those who were at work were Chinese nationals. Many of them had little experience or knowledge of the sea.

MD Safety comment:  This case highlights the need to undertake dynamic risk assessments and to ensure the implementation of exclusion zones around operating plant.

A North Yorkshire construction company has been fined after a worker was struck on the head and killed by a 16-ton excavator.  On 13 January 2021, Dean Myers, an employee of HACS Construction Ltd, was undertaking groundwork activities in a partially excavated trench at a site in Ripley, North Yorkshire.

James Rourke was killed on a construction site just months after graduating from university, at a time when his employer was already under investigation over another death. As the company admits major health and safety failings for the second time, James's family question whether lessons were learned.  It was on a school trip to Iceland that James's passion for rocks was ignited, eventually leading to a masters degree in geology from the University of Birmingham.

A health and safety expert is calling for stricter rules after the death of a man in Cambridgeshire.  James Rourke died when an excavator, whose driver hadn't seen him, hit and killed the 22-year-old while working on a building site in Brampton in November 2019.  James, who was unsupervised at the time of his death, was working on site for the first time.

A company in Peterborough has been fined £67,000 after a young employee lost his life.  George Setchfield was found unconscious over the side of a large container while working for Electrostatic Magic Limited at the firm’s site in Peterborough.  George’s mum says his passing has affected “every aspect” of her life.

A manufacturing company has been fined £15,000 after exposing its own workers to wood dust and failing to comply with two improvement notices.  Wood dust can cause serious and often irreversible health problems, including sino-nasal cancer, asthma and dermatitis. Employers have a legal responsibility to prevent or adequately control exposure in the workplace.

A construction firm has admitted a health and safety offence after a probationary worker was killed by an excavator whose driver did not see him.  James Rourke, 22, was on a newbuild site in Brampton, Cambridgeshire when he died in November 2019.An inquest jury in 2022 said the site engineer had no supervision.

A recycling company has been fined £2.15million after an agency worker was killed by a loading shovel at its site in Hartlepool.  Dean Atkinson lost his life when he was struck and run over by the vehicle at Ward Recycling Limited’s premises on Windermere Road, Longhill Industrial Estate in January 2020.

In August 2022, Mahmut Emanet took a company car to be serviced by Silver Street Service Garage in north London. The car was raised on a two-post vehicle lift and Mahmut was left standing underneath. Somehow, the car fell off the lift onto him, resulting in him spending six days in a critical care unit and suffering permanent, life-changing injuries.