Director “lied” during factory explosion trial

A judge has slammed the boss of a gas-supply firm for lying throughout his trial for safety failings, following an explosion at a factory in St Helens.

John Webster, who is managing director of North West Gases Ltd, was found guilty of failing to protect himself and workers following a trial at Liverpool Crown Court. The prosecution relates to an explosion at the firm’s factory on 10 April 2008.

On the day of the incident, Webster and another worker, who wishes to remain anonymous, were attempting to remove a valve on a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder, which the company produced for a range of uses, including powering forklift trucks. They failed to ensure that the cylinder was empty and when they unscrewed the valve, gas escaped into the workshop. When Webster attempted to put a new valve on the cylinder, the gas ignited and caused an explosion. Webster’s clothes were set on fire, and the other worker was thrown across the building. Both suffered serious burns to their hands, face, and legs. They were taken to a specialist burns unit and both suffered post-traumatic stress disorder. A third employee suffered minor injuries during the explosion.

HSE inspector Warren Pennington told SHP that Webster claimed he instructed his colleague to ensure that the cylinder was empty. This version of events was disputed by the injured worker who said that Webster was aware that the gas hadn’t been drained, and they heard it escaping when they loosened the valve.

Inspector Pennington explained that Webster should have removed the gas before making alterations to the cylinder. He and his colleague continued with the work despite the sound of the gas escaping, and gave no consideration to the multiple potential ignition sources in the workshop. “Mr Webster’s failure to carry out even the most basic of safety checks led to what was an entirely preventable incident,” said inspector Pennington. “He failed to ensure that the cylinder was empty and didn’t check for any potential sources of ignition in the building, any of which could have caused this explosion. In this case, the fact that no one was killed was simply down to luck.”



On 13 February, Webster was found guilty of breaching s7 of the HSWA 1974 and was fined £22,500. He was also ordered to pay £2500 towards costs. In delivering his sentence, Judge Morrow said: “The jury rejected your evidence because they must have been sure your were lying, as I am sure that you were lying. The only conclusion I can come to is the reason for replacing the valve was commercially motivated, though the benefit can’t have been very great.”

Webster had no previous convictions. He told the court that the factory was destroyed by the explosion and has not been rebuilt due to an ongoing dispute with his insurance provider.

Source: SHP

Company failed to check interlocks

A worker at a fencing manufacturer suffered serious arm injuries when a machine started moving unexpectedly while he was reaching inside to repair a fault.

The worker, who wishes to remain anonymous, was working at Betafence Ltd’s factory in Shepcote Lane, Sheffield when the incident took place on 7 August 2009. He was operating a wire-drawing machine, which thins wire so it can be used as fencing.

The line of wire often broke when it passed through the machine, at which point the operator was required to isolate the machine and weld the wire back together. In order to access the wire, he needed to take out a moveable guard, which was fitted with an interlocking device designed to isolate the machine when the guard is removed.

However, when the worker leant into the machine and withdrew the guard the interlock failed to cut the power to the block, and the machine started moving unexpectedly. His right arm was pulled through the rotating block and he suffered a dislocated elbow, compound fractures to his lower arm, and parts of his skin were ripped off. He subsequently needed three skin grafts and two metal plates have been fitted into his forearm. He has been unable to return to work owing to his injuries.

HSE inspector Jill Thompson told SHP that the company regularly checked to see if the guards were in place, but failed to test whether the interlocks were operational. She said: “This is an example of how a simple failure of a safety switch can result in life-changing injuries. Had the company included safety-switch checking as part of the guard-checking system, this incident would probably have been avoided. “Prevention of access to moving parts of machinery is a clear duty upon employers and includes making sure that safety features of machines are maintained effectively.”

Betafence appeared at Sheffield Magistrates’ Court on 3 February and pleaded guilty to breaching reg.11(1) of PUWER 1998. It was fined £12,000 and ordered to pay £3762 in costs.

In mitigation, the company said it removed the machine from service immediately and subsequently installed a relay on each to monitor the state of the interlocks. It cooperated with the investigation and entered an early guilty plea.

In July 2003, the company was fined £7000 for breaching s2(1) of the HSWA 1974 after a worker was injured while working on a similar machine at the same factory.

Composite container manufacturer CBT Packaging fined after a worker's hand was injured

Line supervisor Lynda Jackson's hand became trapped when using cleaning paper to dry machine parts after the paper got caught between two glue rollers and her right hand was pulled into the machine, severing two fingers on 22 March 2011.

Following an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the company was fined £12,000, with costs of £4,971.45. HSE Inspector Julie Rayner said: "Lynda Jackson was failed by the company's lack of proper training, inadequate assessment of risks, an absence of safe working practices and preventing access to dangerous equipment. It is simply unacceptable that this lady should be injured at work as a consequence of her employer's negligence. I hope other employers take note of this case and review their own processes."

The investigation found that, although the company's stated policy was not to clean the gluing machine while its rollers were rotating, it was standard practice to ignore this. Basildon Magistrates' Court was told staff were not given adequate training in how to clean the machine safely, and the guard it had been fitted with was not well enough maintained to prevent access to the rollers.

Jackson was off work for approximately two months but has been told the nerve damage she suffered to her fingers may be permanent.

CBT Packaging was not available for comment.

Source: Print Week 6th Jan 2012

More senior managers prosecuted for health and safety failings

The number of directors and senior managers prosecuted under section 37 of the HSWA 1974 has rocketed by more than 400 per cent in the last five years, according to unofficial figures released by the HSE in response to a freedom of information (FoI) request.

In October last year, solicitor Lee Hughes asked the regulator a number of questions regarding prosecutions of individual directors over the last 12 years. The figures reported back to Mr Hughes show that 43 directors and/or senior managers and company secretaries were prosecuted under s37 of the HSWA in 2010/11* – the highest since 1999/2000. The total also represents a significant increase on the 12-year-period’s low of 10 prosecutions under s37 in 2005/06, and follows the period’s previous high of 36 – recorded in both 2008/09 and 2009/10.

The total number of individuals convicted under s37 in 2010/11 was 35 – a substantial increase on the five convictions secured in 2005/06.*

Interestingly, of the senior managers and directors prosecuted in 2010/11, seven faced charges as a result of an investigation that followed a fatal incident; 15 were prosecuted for offences that resulted from an investigation where there had not been a fatal incident; and 21 resulted from an investigation where no incident of any nature had occurred.

Following conviction, three directors were disqualified for periods of between four and five years under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986. Data in relation to this matter were not available prior to 2008/09, a year in which three directors were also disqualified. None was disqualified in 2009/10.

Disqualification is not confined to s37 breaches; other reasons could include breaches of sections 3(2), 7, 8 and 36 of the 1974 Act, as well as contravention of Improvement or Prohibition Notices. Nevertheless, a general lack of awareness among HSE operations directors and their local-authority counterparts of the 1986 Act provisions was highlighted in an influential research report prepared for the HSE in 2007 by academics at the University of Warwick.

The research, which looked at the period between the 1986 Act coming into force and 2005, concluded that just 10 directors had been disqualified for health and safety reasons over this timespan – a figure dwarfed by the 1500, or so, directors disqualified for insolvency, or other financial reasons over the same period.

In September last year, the Lib Dems put forward a policy paper at their party conference, advocating that the power to disqualify an individual from being a company director should be extended to serious failure to protect employees’ well-being.

Moreover, despite calls for the Institute of Directors/HSE code of practice on directors’ duties to be made statutory, it remains voluntary.

* The HSE cautions that this data has not been validated and may not be completely accurate.

Source: SHP 04 January 2012

Disqualify directors who ignore well-being, say Lib Dems

Company directors should be disqualified for serious cases of failing to protect their employees’ well-being, according to a new policy paper from the Liberal Democrats.

Presented at the party’s annual conference in Septmber 2011, the paper details the Lib Dems’ proposals to improve people’s quality of life and well-being. Several proposals concern the workplace, with the party recognising that employers should take action to make their workplaces better environments in which to work, and measure this through employee satisfaction.

It suggests, for example, that employers should implement measures that allow staff to gain a sense of control over how they carry out the task they are doing, and increase flexible-working arrangements. By 2014, it wants to see the 9000, or so largest organisations – which, together, employ half of the UK workforce – report on employee satisfaction and the extent of flexible working.

It also believes that a new National Institute for Well-being should be set up and tasked with creating a way to report this information in an accessible way, so that employers will be encouraged to use it to improve their well-being performance.

Although the Lib Dems argue that these policies should be implemented through cultural change rather than compulsion, the party does believe that the existing power to disqualify an individual from being a company director for financial impropriety should be extended to serious failure to protect employees’ well-being.

According to an HSE-commissioned report published in 2007 on the effectiveness of the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986, company directors are almost 300 times more likely to be disqualified by a court from acting as a director for financial reasons than for breaching health and safety rules. Researchers from the University of Warwick found that, up to 2005, just ten directors had been disqualified for health and safety breaches, while some 1500 were disqualified for insolvency, or other financial reasons over the same period.

In a speech at the Liberal Democrat conference, the party’s deputy leader, Simon Hughes, said “a new attitude to work could make the biggest change” to quality of life and well-being.

He said: “In the UK, we have one of the most unequal distributions of work in the developed world. Almost four out of every ten men and nearly one out of every eight women work more than 45 hours a week – more than twice as many as our western European neighbours.

“This is a particular problem in the financial sector and at the top of large businesses, where many people work extremely long hours accumulating huge amounts of money, which they barely have the time to spend. At the same time, we also have one of the highest rates of people who work less than 20 hours a week.”

Calling for a radical redistribution of work, he added: “Overwork has hugely damaging consequences for families, relationships and the quality of personal and community life. Lack of work is one of the biggest causes of poverty and poor physical and mental health.”

He concluded: “If we really want to make a difference to quality of life in our country, we need also to tackle inequality of wealth by tackling inequality of work.”

Despite calls for the Institute of Directors/HSE code of practice on directors’ duties to be made statutory, it remains voluntary.

Source: SHP 22 September 2011

Rationalising health and safety law

Self-employed people in low-risk occupations will be among the first to benefit from a wholesale revamp of health and safety regulation, which has been promised "sooner rather than later" by employment minister, Chris Grayling, in response to 'Reclaiming health and safety for all: An independent review of health and safety regulation'.

While the review by Professor Lofstedt concludes that the regulatory regime offers vital protection for employees and the public, it identifies factors such as inconsistent enforcement and the influence of third parties that drive businesses beyond what the regulations require and generate excessive paperwork. It makes a total of 26 commendations, of which the following five are being acted upon as a priority:

1. 1) The Health & Safety Executive has been asked to take urgent action to draw up proposals exempting from health and safety law those self employed people in low risk occupations that represent no risk to others.
2. 2) HSE will review its Approved Codes of Practice (ACoP), which, according to Lofsted, are often written in a legalistic manner that confuses, rather than helps, duty-holders. The initial phase of the review should be completed by June 2012.
3. 3) HSE is to undertake a programme of sector-specific regulation consolidation that will reduce the number of regulations by more than 50%, without reducing protection.
4. 4) HSE will be given the authority to direct all local authority health and safety inspection and enforcement, ensuring consistency and the targeting of the most risky businesses.
5. Regulatory provisions that impose strict liability should be reviewed by June 2013 and either qualified with 'reasonably practicable' where strict liability is not absolutely necessary or amended to prevent civil liability attaching to a breach.

Mr Grayling also announced that the government will form a new panel, where businesses can challenge the decisions of health and safety inspectors and get them overturned immediately if they have got it wrong.
'Reclaiming health and safety for ail: An independent review of health and safety regulation' (Cm8219) is available - at £16.75, from The Stationery Office; tel: 0870 600 5522 - or online, at http://tinyurl.com/bizinf51m67 - pdf.

'The Government response to the Lofstedt Report' is at http://tinyurl.com/bizinf516c7 - pdf. Additional background information is at http://tinyurl.com/blzinf5167p (DWP Information Orderline; tel: 0845 7313233: HSE Infoline; tel: 0845 345 0055).

Make sure you regularly inspect equipment

Two construction companies must pay a total of £125,000 in fines and costs for failing to ensure that a cherry-picker, which was involved in a fatality, was safe for use. Amey Infrastructure Services Ltd and Mouchel Parkman Services Ltd were working as a joint venture to carry out maintenance work on the A5036 Princess Way, in Seaforth. A team of six workers were cleaning and replacing the lights on the central reservation when the incident took place on 20 August 2006.

Peter Cole, 61, was employed by Amey Infrastructure Services and was part of the maintenance team working on the dual carriageway. He had repaired one of the lights from inside the basket of a cherry-picker when, as he was being lowered, the vehicle’s lifting arm collapsed. He fell eight metres and landed on the back of the vehicle. He was taken to hospital but died from his injuries the next day.

The HSE’s investigation learned that the cherry-picker, which was one of three identical vehicles rented from Highland Access Ltd, was nine years old and had a lengthy maintenance record. The joint on the cherry-picker’s arm had progressively degraded as a result of exposure to the elements, and, consequently, it could not cope with the force exerted when lowering Mr Cole.

Inspectors also found that Amey Infrastructure Services and Mouchel Parkman Services had a system in place that required the vehicles to be inspected daily, but these checks weren’t consistently carried out. During inspections of the two other hired cherry-pickers, the HSE found faults with the emergency stop mechanism on both vehicles. As a result, both companies were issued with two Prohibition Notices, which required both vehicles to be taken out of service until they were repaired.

HSE inspector Dave Guyers told SHP that both companies should either have ensured that newer cherry-pickers were used, or made sure that regular safety checks on the existing hire vehicles were carried out continuously. He said: “Both companies had a legal duty to ensure Mr Cole remained safe but their checking and maintenance systems were inadequate, and thus allowed him to use a cherry-picker that was in a poor condition.

“Heavy usage and a regular repair record demand that checking and maintenance procedures are carried out thoroughly. This is vital with cherry-pickers, which place users at great risk when working at height.”

Amey Infrastructure Services appeared at Liverpool Crown Court on 1 December and pleaded guilty to breaching s2(1) of the HSWA 1974. It was fined £30,000 and ordered to pay £32,500 in costs. Mouchel Parkman Services appeared at the same hearing and pleaded guilty to breaching s3(1) of the HSWA 1974. It was ordered to pay the same level in fines and costs. In mitigation, both firms said they had cooperated with the investigation and have subsequently hired new equipment, ensuring that daily checks are carried out on the vehicles.

After the hearing, a spokesperson for Amey Infrastructure Services said: “This case arises out of an accident that occurred over five and a half years ago. The judge noted that none of the acts, or omissions were in any way causative of the death of Mr Peter Cole.” The HSE also brought charges against Highland Access Ltd but the company went into liquidation in July and the case is no longer being pursued.

Source: SHP