Two companies have been sentenced after a worker fell from a scissor lift and fractured his skull, leaving him in an induced coma.  The electrician, employed by Optilight Electrical Services Ltd, had been repairing light fittings at Expert Tooling and Automation Ltd’s site on Sayer Drive, Coventry when he fell from a scissor lift and landed on the factory floor.

A Yorkshire metals recycling company has been fined £1.2m after a worker was injured after being struck by a wagon at a processing site.  On 10 August 2020 an employee of CF Booth Limited was walking across the site yard in Rotherham when he was struck by a moving 32-tonne skip wagon. The man was not wearing his hi-vis jacket and did not see the wagon approaching. The wagon driver did not see the employee prior to the collision due to concentrating on manoeuvring the vehicle around some low-level skips which had been placed on the corner near where the employee was crossing the yard.

The safety alert is aimed at organisations in the waste and recycling sector operating vehicles with hydraulically operated rear doors, hatches, body sections etc.   It follows a fatal accident when a person was working under the top-hinged hydraulically powered rear door of a road sweeper.

The Vehicles don’t crash – people do! conference at the National Space Center in Leicester hosted by National Highways and Driving for Better Business, focused on what health and safety professionals should be doing to increase driver-centric safety measures.  Mel Clarke, Director of Health, Safety and Wellbeing at National Highways began the conference asking: “Is it acceptable that around five people will die on our roads today?”

A company and its director have been sentenced after workers were exposed to asbestos and its potential harmful effects.  Inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) visited Eye Track Limited’s site in Stretford, Manchester, and found an uncontrolled spread of asbestos containing materials around the premises.

A housing company based in Kent has been fined £528,000 after an employee repairing a fence post inadvertently struck an underground cable, suffering burns to his face.  The MHS Homes employee and a colleague had been tasked by the company to repair three fence posts in a back garden of a tenant on 10 January 2023. They had already repaired two of the posts and started on a third, when one of the workers struck an underground electrical cable as he tried to break through some concrete using a breaker.

Osbourne Clarke provide a UK Regulatory Outlook April 2024 - read on:

A new law is to be introduced making assaulting a retail worker a standalone criminal offence – but unions say the government action is too little too late.  The Prime Minister launched a retail crime crackdown this month after statistics showed 90% of retail workers have been abused by customers. The initiative, launched to root out prolific and violent shoplifters is called Project Pegasus. 

An aviation company has been fined £160,000 after a man, described by his family as a “legend”, was crushed to death at London Heathrow Airport during the unloading of baggage containers from an aircraft.  The man was working for Dnata Limited, a provider of ground handling and cargo services to major airlines, at Terminal 3 on 23 February 2022. He had arrived at the stand with a set of trailers to collect baggage containers which were being unloaded from the hold of an Emirates Airbus A380 aircraft which had just arrived from Dubai.

A company which provides shipping services, cargo handling and storage has been fined after a worker severed part of his finger while at work.  Dundee Sheriff Court heard that on 13 July 2021 Gordon McMillan, 55 at the time of the incident, works as a ‘stevedore’ (steve-eh-door), a role which involves the dockside loading and unloading of ships and goods vehicles, was injured when operating a table saw.