Company fined £8,000 for workplace accident

An accident at work which left a man with a severe back injury has resulted in a Staffordshire company being fined £8,000.

Klarius UK Ltd, which is based in Cheadle, pleaded guilty to breaking regulation 6(3) of the Work at Height Regulations 2005 at Newcastle-under-Lyme Magistrates Court following an incident in August 2009 which caused a worker to be immobilised for six weeks.

Mr Barry Derbyshire crushed one vertebra and fractured another when he fell more than two metres off a tower of scaffolding as he did some routine maintenance work on machinery at the firm's base.

Following an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive it was found that there had never been a safety rail installed on the scaffolding, which is the reason why Mr Derbyshire fell as he tried to correct an oil leak on the machine.

Klarius - which employs more than 650 workers across Europe - was also forced to pay £1,892 in costs for the incident.

Posted by Craig Williams
 

05/08/2010 16:01