Safety failings at Bartram Manufacturing, which manufactures wooden roofing trusses in Beeston, led to an employee suffering multiple fractures after the stack toppled onto him.
Luton Magistrates Court heard last week how the man suffered multiple fractures after a fork lift truck reversed into a stack of roof trusses, causing them to fall onto him. Pinned against his workbench, he fractured a knee cap and 14 ribs.
An investigation by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) into the incident, which occurred on 1st March 2017, found that the company failed to manage health and safety in three separate areas. The company failed to identify safe methods of delivering work materials inside the production areas, it did not provide suitable training and it did not supervise workers to ensure they worked safely.
Bartram Manufacturing Limited of High Road, Beeston pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. The company was fined £82,000 and ordered to pay costs of £1,804.40 as well as a victim surcharge of £170.
HSE inspector Emma Page said after the hearing: “Those in control of work have a responsibility to devise safe methods of working and to provide the necessary information, instruction and training to their workers in the safe system of working. If a safe system of work had been in place prior to the incident, the severe injuries sustained by the employee could have been prevented.”
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