Lawford Kidd, Personal Injury Solicitors

A firm specialising in the manufacture of wooden doors and windows has been fined for safety failings after a worker died at its Leyton premises.

Andrzej Rokita had been with M M Contracting Ltd for only ten days when he attempted to help his son, also an employee, to remove a large board from the middle of a pile stacked upright against a wall in the workshop.

The company's usual system for doing this was for one employee to stand in front of the stack, taking the weight of the unwanted boards on his hands, while a fellow worker pulled out the chosen one from the side. Unfortunately as Mr Rokita tried to support the weight of the leaning wooden panels they toppled over, crushing him and causing fatal head injuries.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated the incident and found that the company did not have a safe system of work for the storage or retrieval of boards. Storing the boards flat on the floor or using a simple purpose-built racking system would have greatly reduced the risk of injury.

After today's sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court, HSE inspector Kevin Smith said:

"This was a death waiting to happen. Incidents such as this are still a common occurrence in the industry despite the existence of guidance from the HSE offering simple, inexpensive solutions for stacking wood safely.

"As a direct result of the company's failure to provide safe storage for their everyday materials, a father and husband has lost his life. There is no excuse for employers not ensuring that wood on their premises is properly stored, posing the most minimal risk to their staff."

The company pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £26,000 and ordered to pay £9,000 in costs.

InjuriesBoard.ie has published its review of 2011, which shows that compensation totalling €210 million was awarded in 2011 in respect of 9,833 personal injury claims. The average award in the period was €21,339. During the year the Board made an award of €829,444, its highest to date.

Award values via the Injuries Board remained consistent with awards through the Courts. The average award in 2011 was €21,339, down 3.8% on 2010. This reduction is largely due to a reduction in the proportion of work related claims – typically of higher value – and reduced loss of earnings, given lower salaries across the economy.

The total value of awards in the period increased by 23% but this was largely driven by an increase in the number of awards assessed in the period. Underlying claims volumes remained stable, increasing by 3% in the period and suggesting that the often mooted increase in claims during recessionary times has not occurred.

Over three quarters of awards (76.5%) were for injuries from road traffic accidents, while the remainder were split between workplace (8.4%) and public place (15.1%) accidents.

More than half of drivers (53%) are risking deadly pile-ups on motorways by driving too close to the vehicle in front, according to research by Brake and Direct Line. More drivers are taking this deadly risk compared to seven years ago (49%), and men are far more likely to do it than women, with a horrifying three in ten male drivers (30%) doing so at least weekly.

In Great Britain in 2010, 263 people were killed and 1,445 seriously injured in road crashes on motorways and 70mph roads.

While there are fewer crashes per mile travelled on motorways, crashes on these roads have an increased risk of death or serious injury because of the speeds involved. Crashes on 70mph roads are more than twice as likely to result in death than crashes on roads with lower speed limits.

Almost one in five fatal crashes on motorways involve four or more vehicles. These kinds of crashes often cause multiple deaths and injuries, and the resulting congestion and tailbacks can cause further crashes.

An Ammanford-based knitwear company and a cladding firm site foreman have been fined for putting workers and visitors at risk of exposure to asbestos.

Corgi Hosiery Ltd contracted Dragon Cladding Ltd to remove an asbestos cement sheet roof at their New Road branch in Ammanford, Carmarthenshire

Having received a complaint about the work, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) visited the site and found roofers had removed the asbestos sheets from the roof, but they had also removed plaster-like material from the underside of the sheets and structural steelwork.

HSE inspectors stopped the work immediately and tests confirmed the plaster-like material contained asbestos.

On further investigation it was found that Dragon Cladding Ltd's site foreman had instructed two workers to use a hammer and chisel to remove the plaster-like material from the building steelwork.

Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard no effort was made to establish what this material was prior to work commencing, and the debris was swept into domestic black bin bags and placed in open skips.

Throughout the duration of the work, Corgi Hosiery employees had continuous access to the main building, with one worker based in the area throughout the works. Visitors to the premises were not excluded from the works area and were also potentially exposed to asbestos.

HSE inspector Anne Marie Orrells said:

"Nowadays, the risks of exposure to asbestos are well known so this serious incident was inexcusable.

"Had Mr Phillips adequately assessed the risks prior to the start of the work, it would have been apparent that the work should have been carried out by an asbestos-licensed contractor, under controlled conditions.

"Corgi Hosiery Limited should have ensured measures were taken to exclude employees and visitors from the area while the roof work was being carried out overhead. As a result of these failings both workers and visitors to their premises were exposed to potentially deadly asbestos-containing materials."

When asbestos fibres are inhaled they can cause serious diseases which are responsible for around 4,000 deaths a year.

The owner of racing stables in North Yorkshire has been prosecuted after a yard worker fell more than three metres through a skylight in a stable block.

Paul Cussons, who had worked at Thorndale Farm near Richmond for 26 years, was asked by trainer and bloodstock agent Alan Swinbank to cut down some overhanging trees above an ageing stable block before planned renovation work.

Mr Cussons had not been trained in either the use of a chainsaw or in how to work safely at height. He took a chainsaw onto the roof of the stable block but as he was sawing through the branches he slipped on some leaves and fell through a skylight, landing on the concrete floor below. He broke both shoulder blades, fractured a rib and punctured a lung.

The Health and Safety Executive investigated and two Prohibition Notices were served on Mr Swinbank preventing further work activity with the chainsaw and stopping work at height.

Mr Alan Swinbank pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 (1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974. He was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £6,048 in costs.

The agricultural sector has the highest rate of fatalities of any other industry in Great Britain. The five year average rate of fatal injury is 0.7 per 100,000 for all workers. In agriculture, it is 9.6 per 100,000, much higher than any other industry. In 2010/11 there were 34 fatal injuries to workers.

Find out more about farm or rural accidents here.