In The News – WHSmith
Ordered to pay a record fine of £168,750 in May 2018 WHSmith Retail Holdings Limited pleaded guilty to two counts of failings under the Health and Safety at Work Act.
A customer was left with multiple injuries including a broken ankle after plunging almost three meters through an open trap door in their Taunton store in Somerset.
Taunton Crown Court heard the store usually tasked an employee with warning shoppers when the door was open, but the worker on the day of the incident in February 2014 “wasn’t wholly attentive”.
“The sales assistant has described that the shopper’s arm caught the chain holding the trapdoor open and wholly or partially pulled it shut.”
“The sales assistant escaped with bruising and was fortunate not to follow the shopper headfirst into the hole.”
Prosecuting party said the victim “could, of course, have been killed”.
This was not the first incident as a subsequent health and safety investigation into the incident by Taunton Deane Council found the company had similar trapdoors in two of its UK stores.
Defending party offered their apologies on behalf of the retailer to the victim, who was in the courtroom for the hearing.
“This is not a company that had no system for health and safety management,” he said, “It did take health and safety seriously but unfortunately, in relation to this incident, there was a lapse in those systems.”
How could this incident and the subsequent hefty fine been avoided?
It’s all very well having processes and procedures in place, including risk assessments to manage Health and Safety, but if these systems are manual, ad-hoc, out of date, not communicated to all your employees and therefore not followed by all employees, incidents like this are likely to keep occurring.
Other organisations fined for not having sufficient risk assessments in place.
Hull City Council
A worker suffered injuries to head and ribs whilst re-laying ice at the Hull Ice Arena. They were fined £512,000 for not having effective measures to reduce the risk of employees working on ice.
Grahams Cartons Limited, Liverpool
An employee had been attempting to retrieve a tool when his hand was drawn into an in-running nip between two large power driven-rollers of a case maker machine, resulting in two of his fingers being severed.
Grahams Cartons pleaded guilty to breaching regulation 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The company was fined £50,000 with costs of £8,554 for failing to:
- Carry out suitable and sufficient risk assessments for the machine involved in the incident and other cardboard forming machinery at the factory.
- Adequately guard the machines to prevent access to dangerous parts.
- Provide adequate training in a safe system of work and to supervise and monitor the work.
Northern Waste Group Ltd, Scunthorpe
A worker was cleaning around a conveyor when he put his arm into the moving machinery without turning it off, his left arm became entangled and the worker suffered a spiral fracture and an open wound to his left upper arm. Surgery to restore the blood supply to his arm was unsuccessful resulting in the amputation of the arm.
The company pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 11 (1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 and was fined £45,000 with £6,247.25 costs.
Forterra Building Products Ltd
A worker was left paralysed from the chest down after being drawn into a conveyor system.
The Company was fined £733,000 highlighting how crucial it is for companies to have a clear procedure for isolating machinery.
News source SHP – Safety & Health Practitioner
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