The TUC has expressed its concerns that the courts are continuing to impose ‘ridiculously low’ fines on employers who are found guilty of health and safety offences despite recent laws that aimed to increase penalties. Section 7 (a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: ‘It shall be the duty of every employee while at work to take reasonable care for the health and safety of himself and of other persons who may be affected by his acts or omissions at work’.
The health and safety at work offences act,[1] which came into effect last year removed the limit on most offences by allowing them to be tried in higher courts and at the same time raised the maximum fine which could be imposed in the lower courts to £20,000. Yet, according to the TUC, the courts are ignoring their new powers.
An example of this occurred on 18 February when a Derbyshire farmer, John Metcalf, was fined £450 for killing an employee as he was reversing through the farmyard in the vehicle with restricted visibility, when he ran over his employer. The court heard that Mr Metcalf had received a number of previous warnings about driving at speed. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation also revealed a four and a half metre skid mark on the ground where Mr Metcalf had tried to stop the vehicle after hitting the victim.
On the same day an international company that supplies food to all major UK supermarkets, Bakkavör Foods Ltd, was fined £3,000 after an employee had his hand crushed whilst assisting colleagues in clearing a blockage in a cabbage washing line. Although the machine had a guard to prevent anyone reaching the screw conveyor, it had been disabled to allow the machine to run without it.
HSE Inspector Jo Anderson said:
‘Bakkavor is a huge company which employs 20,000 worldwide and 2500 in the UK alone. It is often assumed companies of this size adhere to health and safety policies at all times. In this instance, Bakkavor failed to efficiently maintain the protective guards in place to prevent employees accessing dangerous parts of the factory's machinery. The employee suffered the injury whilst working a night shift and this unfortunate incident sends out a clear message on the importance of companies maintaining the same standard of care to employees on a night shift as on a day shift.’
TUC health and safety officer Hugh Robertson said[2]: 'In both these cases, which were heard in separate courts on the same day, the penalty in no way reflected the seriousness of the offence. The farmer had been repeatedly warned by the HSE about his actions, yet because these warnings were ignored a man died. In the other case safety controls were deliberately tampered with by a multinational company resulting in serious injuries to one of the workforce. These were easily preventable and the courts should have been sending out a clear message that employers who put their workers at risk in this way will be dealt with severely. Instead the courts administered fines that amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist.'
The message does seem to be getting through – a couple of months later on 16 April 2010, an international metal-processing company was fined £12,500 plus £4230 in costs after one of its workers was run over by a forklift truck in Bolton. On this occasion the worker was not killed: the injuries included three broken toes, a fractured foot, and extensive skin, muscle and tissue damage. He still has difficulty walking more than eighteen months after the incident. All Metal Services Limited (AMS) was prosecuted by HSE following the incident at the company’s warehouse on the Wingates Industrial Park in Westhoughton on 8 September 2008.
Further details of all accidents at work involving HSE can be viewed on their website here.
[1] http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2008/ukpga_20080020_en_1_en_1
[2] www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s