Scottish company fined £96k for workplace accident

A Scottish quarrying firm has been fined £96,000 following an accident at work which left a man dead.

Leiths Scotland Limited was ordered to pay the damages claim after pleading guilty to breaking section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 in a case at Elgin Crown Court for its liability in an incident which caused fatal injuries to one of its employees in November 2008.

Arthur Jamieson, a 58-year-old from Banffshire, was crushed to death as he mended a leak from the transmission of a mechanical digger at the company's plant in Dufftown, which is located in Speyside in the north-east of the country.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the five-and-a-half tonne vehicle rolled off the ramp on which it was secured for the work and landed on Mr Jamieson's chest.

It was discovered that Leiths had not given the worker adequate training in how to raise the digger safely.
HSE inspector Norman Buchanan commented after the trial: "It is wholly unacceptable his employers left him unsupervised to devise his own means of working on such a risky repair job."

Posted by Craig Williams
 

11/08/2010 16:55