Royal Mail has been fined £90,000 and ordered to pay £42,500 costs after one of its drivers was crushed to death. Colin Smith was standing between a tractor and a trailer at the Heathrow Worldwide Distribution Centre in Slough, when he was killed on 5 September 2006. A colleague, Ian Wheeler, who was driving one of the vehicles, did not know Mr Smith was there and accidental reversed into him. He suffered horrific injuries and died at the Langley site. Mr Wheeler has since been acquitted.
At Reading Crown Court the firm admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 because it had not anticipated such dangers could exist at the centre, which processes international mail. Sentencing Royal Mail, Judge Stephen John described the incident as a "distressing case". "It has not been suggested that any individual employed by Royal Mail was reckless or displayed a cavalier attitude towards health and safety. It is an additional tragedy in this case that the driver of the tractor unit was a friend of Mr Smith. No-one would ever know why Mr Smith was standing between the vehicles, which was a substantial blind spot area".
Health and Safety Executive inspector Karl Howes commented that Royal Mail could easily have prevented the accident by properly controlling vehicles. "The company failed to adequately assess the risk to shunters working in the yard or to identify and rectify the unsafe system and this contributed to Mr Smith's death".
Safety measures have since been introduced to ensure people cannot be trapped in such a way.
