If you’re regularly faced with social risks such as aggressive behaviour or verbal abuse, carrying a dedicated personal safety device is essential to ensure you can discreetly call for help, without needing to make a call on your mobile phone (because this could cause the situation to escalate).  However, what if social risk isn’t a regular occurrence for you but you’re sometimes faced with situations that make you feel uncomfortable?

A company has been fined after a worker suffered serious injuries following an explosion at their factory.  Chelmsford Magistrate’s Court heard how, on the 24 September 2019, employees at Fabric Flare Solutions Limited, Unit 7, Gosford Road, Beccles, Suffolk, were treating fabrics with a hydrophobic coating that gave off flammable vapours both during the application process and when subsequently drying in the spray room.  The flammable vapours ignited causing an explosion just as a 51-year-old employee was walking past the spray room. The blast threw him several metres across the factory and he suffered serious burn injuries to 15 per cent of his body.

A waste management company has been sentenced for safety breaches after an employee and an agency worker both fell from height.  Leeds Crown Court heard that, on the 4 September 2018, an employee of Associated Waste Management Limited was walking across a first-floor gantry at the company’s premises in Morley, Leeds, when one of the metal mesh panels gave way beneath his feet. He fell approximately four metres into the bay below and sustained a double break to the left leg, a break to the right leg and a broken ankle. An agency worker came to assist him, but he also fell through the missing floor panel and sustained a dislocated and fractured shoulder. 

A company that manufactures and supplies artificial trees has been fined £40,000 after one of its staff fell five metres from a ladder and suffered serious injuries while trying to retrieve stock.  The injured man was an employee of Treelocate (Europe) Limited, based in Northumberland, and was gathering products stored in boxes on shelf racking up to four bays high. 

A PRESTIGIOUS car manufacturer has been slapped with a £60,000 fine for a Health and Safety failure.  The iconic Morgan Motor Company, based in Malvern, was deemed guilty of failing to 'assess and control the risk' of unloading and manoeuvring a car chassis while it was being delivered.

TfL has successfully prosecuted Thames Water for four safety streetworks related offences committed on the Transport for London Road Network.  The works took place on the Purley Way, Eltham Road and West Hill in October and November 2019, with prosecution delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.  Ensuring that street works are safe for people walking, cycling and using London’s roads is vital as badly managed works can create hazards and danger for people on the roads.

Burghill Farms, a partnership trading as Dalhousie Estates, and Mr Piers Le Cheminant have been fined following an incident where one of the occupants of a holiday cottage was found collapsed in a bathroom heated by a portable cabinet propane gas heater.  Forfar Sheriff Court heard that on 28 October 2015, the victim, Thomas Oliver Hill, was staying with his girlfriend and her family at Glenmark Cottage, Tarfside, north-west of Edzel.

A Lincolnshire-based food manufacturer has been fined after one of its employees sustained two broken ribs having been crushed within an industrial cooking machine whilst working to clear a blocked water inlet.  The HSE’s investigation found that the task was carried out by the employees in this fashion on a regular basis and that the company should have been aware.

£90k fine for care home lift shaft fall

A care home firm in Flintshire, Wales has been fined £90,000 after one of its staff – a newly-recruited care home manager – fell down a lift shaft.  Pearlcare Wellfield Limited was found guilty of four health and safety breaches at Mold Crown Court after Lorraine Carter was seriously injured in the incident at the Wellfield Residential Care Home in Wood Lane, Hawarden. 

Wheeled loading shovels in waste and recycling

NEW HSE SAFETY NOTICE: This safety notice is to remind dutyholders who use these machines of the need to fully assess and actively manage the risk of vehicle-pedestrian collisions. There have been nine fatal vehicle-pedestrian collisions in the past four years involving wheeled loading shovels.