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.  

A jury has found that farm bosses allowed repairs to be carried out without following health and safety rules on a tyre which then exploded and killed a young worker.   Josh Hardman was standing close by while the 'irreparable' tractor tyre was being inflated when it suddenly exploded and the rim struck him on the head at Old Grange Farm in Hutton on May 7, 2021. The 23-year-old was taken to the Royal Preston Hospital where he passed away just over a month later. 

A company operating a butcher’s shop in Doncaster city centre, has been fined £19,879 after the Council’s Health and Safety Inspector and electricians found numerous serious safety concerns regarding the electrical installation.  A hearing at Doncaster Magistrates’ Court in November 2023 found the owners of Kian Halal Meat, Copley Road guilty of a string of dangerous oversights.

A Kent scaffolding company has been fined and its director given a suspended prison sentence after a scaffolder suffered an 11,000-volt electric shock.  Steven Gilmore, 36, was working for contractor Canterbury City Scaffolding Ltd alongside a small team of scaffolders, to erect a temporary roof scaffold at an open-air drinks depot in Snow Hill, Crawley, West Sussex.

Back in September last year, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) announced it was carrying out inspections. Since then more than half of those checks have identified failings.  This is a highly technical, specialist field applying precision engineering – but it can also cause harm to the lungs and skin. HSE says more needs to be done to keep workers safe.