A company failed to install a safe system of work to manage HGVs reversing into its warehouse and also failed to assess the risks involved in undertaking this work as well as providing training to staff, a court has been told.
One of the firm’s directors died in hospital from his crush injuries after being trapped between a reversing heavy goods vehicle (HGV) and some steel storage racks in the manufacturer’s Rochdale warehouse.
On the afternoon of 22 June 2023, the director had offered to remain behind at the firm’s warehouse at Unit 1 Park Mill to wait for an HGV that was on its way back to the site. After the vehicle arrived around 5.30pm, he spoke to the driver and confirmed he would act as banksman to help the driver reverse the vehicle into the warehouse. However, as the driver was manoeuvring the vehicle backwards, he lost sight of him and got out to check he was all right. He found the director trapped between the HGV and some steel storage racks inside the warehouse. Despite calling the paramedics to the site he later died in hospital from his injuries.
HSE investigation
After arriving at the site, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) identified a number of failures that had put the firm’s employees at risk and contributed to the fatality.
To start with, the company had been allowing HGVs to be reversed into the warehouse for some time without having a safe system of work in place to manage this manoeuvre.
When employees were interviewed, they confirmed they had been undertaking this hazardous task for a number of years but without being trained to do it safely. One employee told the HSE that he had, on occasion, reversed HGVs into the warehouse with someone else acting as banksman, even though neither individual had been trained to undertake this task.
The HSE investigation also found that the company had failed to risk assess this hazardous work and served the firm with an improvement notice.
Since his death, the firm has carried out a risk assessment and subsequently implemented a safe system of work. This system prevents employees from reversing HGVs using a banksman.
Prosecution
The company pleaded guilty to breaching s 33(1)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. On 10 July, the textile firm was handed a £220,000 fine at Manchester Magistrates Court and ordered to pay £5,634 in costs.
The directors family said the prosecution’s outcome had left them with ‘mixed emotions’. ‘We are glad the company have admitted being responsible for his death and been handed a fine,’ they said in a statement. ‘But we remain devastated that we no longer have him in our lives… He got on well with all his colleagues at work and had a great career. He was a respected professional who loved his job and was well known in the industry and was excited for his future. But that was all taken away from us in an instant.’
HSE inspector Jane Carroll, added: ‘He was clearly popular and respected, but his leadership and dedication to his colleagues was not properly protected by the defendant.’
Industrial accident specialist partner Jon Andrews of Express Solicitors, whose firm are now representing the family in a civil negligence compensation claim against his former company following the HSE prosecution, said the accident was ‘entirely preventable’. ‘This was a senseless and tragic accident that should never have happened and was entirely preventable,’ he said.
‘Workplaces need to make sure they look after their employees and protect them from harm at all times. ‘We are now taking action against his former company on behalf of the family as he was the main breadwinner and we will be helping to secure their financial future.’
Wider lessons
The HSE provides businesses with advice on managing workplace transport safety and has published steps to prevent accidents at work sites, including those that involve interactions between vehicles and pedestrians. This advice covers important actions, namely what must be considered in a risk assessment, and how to keep sites, vehicles and drivers safe. Specific measures include avoid reversing where possible and provide reversing aids such as CCTV where appropriate. Taking the annual average number of work-related fatal injuries published by the HSE for 2020/21 to 2024/25, struck by a moving vehicle – together with falls from a height and struck by a moving object – account for 60% of all deaths.
While HSE’s provisional figures for 2024-2025 show that the number of people killed at work after being struck by a moving vehicle was 14, down 25 from 2023/24 figures, the fact that it remains one of the three main causes of fatalities at work means businesses need to ensure they manage workplace transport safety properly.
Source – IOSH
