The Court of Appeal has lowered a Health and Safety fine of £1.8 million by a massive 70%.
The fine was imposed on a port operator in January over failings that left a worker with a broken arm.
The fine has now been reduced to £500,000 for C.RO Ports London's failure to implement an exclusion zone around a powered dock-side capstan and act on an earlier near miss.
C.RO Ports London pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 after the worker's left hand became caught between the capstan's rotating drum and a heaving line at its terminal in Purfleet, Essex, in June 2014.
In the Court of Appeal it had been argued that the fine was excessive because the offence was not flagrant and the company had not deliberately ignored the earlier near miss.
It was also pointed out that the company had an otherwise good safety record and had conducted a risk assessment and devised a system of work for mooring operations.
This is the first successful appeal against a fine in 2016.
Just before the new sentencing guidelines came in there were a number of large fines, including four companies being fined over £1m or more.
It's thought that this successful appeal could open the floodgates for more convicted firms to appeal their large fines.
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