A metal recycling firm was fined £2 million following a guilty plea to corporate manslaughter after an employee was killed by a machine in 2017.
As part of a three-year joint investigation carried out by the West Midlands Police and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) where hours of CCTV footage were examined as evidence, three directors of Alutrade were sentenced and fined following a number of severe safety breaches that lead to the fatal accident.
On 24 June 2017, 34-year-old Stuart Towns was accessing an area beneath a hopper that fed scrap metal onto a conveyor belt, known as the "Biffa Line", through a broken gate. A few minutes later colleagues discovered a Towns's body who had suffered fatal head injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Alutrade was previously warned about poor machine access controls, including lockable gates, to prevent people from entering the vicinity of the machine while it is operating. The firm had installed gates but at the time of Mr Towns's death, the gate was broken. During the investigation, the HSE discovered that the company had bad safety culture where the managing directors would turn a blind eye to unsafe working practices among their employees.
Analysis of the CCTV footage presented shockingly poor practices at the recycling plant, which included workers jumping on top of the scrap metal in hoppers to help clear the blockages or lifting people 18 feet above the ground to clear blockages using a forklift truck.
The Crown Prosecution Service originally brought charges of gross negligence manslaughter against director Malcolm George, director Kevin Pugh and the company's health and safety manager Mark Redfern who pleaded guilty, but ultimately they were also fined on the basis of breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 for failing to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of their employees. George was fined £15,000 with costs of £7,109; Pugh was fined £5,318 with £3,854 costs; and Redfern was fined £2,635, with the company paying his costs.
Alutrade was fined £2 million and ordered to pay £105,514 in costs.
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