IOSH has reported that a waste treatment business that was fined £80,000 after an employee was buried in a pile of waste and asphyxiated, would have had to pay £600,000 if it wasn't in administration.
This is believed to be the first application of the new sentencing guidelines to a firm that has stopped trading.
Neville Watson worked at the Blaise Farm Quarry site, in Kent, of New Earth Solutions, which is licensed to process up to 50,000 tonnes of waste a year. On 9 August 2014 he was operating a shredder alone beside a heap of co-mingled waste more than 8m tall in a warehouse. At the end of his shift, he got out of the cab of his shovel loader beside the heap and attached the shredder to it to tow it from the building. The heap collapsed on him and he was asphyxiated.
Watson had to put himself at risk by getting out of the cab because a remote control that would have coupled the shredder to his vehicle automatically and released the brakes had developed a fault and been sent for repair. He was new to the task, and had only been given basic instructions, which included nothing on the risks.
New Earth Solutions pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and were sentenced on 7 November 2016. The Judge in question noted the firm had ceased trading and that the sentencing guidelines were "silent as to how to sentence companies in administration" but that it was right and proper to apply the structured approach they offered.
He assessed culpability as medium, harm level as A (because of the fatality) and high risk of harm, putting the offence in the guidelines’ category 1. The offence was a significant cause of actual harm.
When solvent, the firm, which operated five sites, would have been classed as a medium-sized organisation for turnover and the fine would have been set at £600,000. But its debts led the Judge to apply the penalty range for a micro-organisation, creating a penalty of £120,000 reduced to £80,000 to reflect a guilty plea. Costs were set at £38,000.
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