Director banned for 5 years for health and safety failings

A Worcestershire company and its managing director was fined a total of £87,000 following a series of health and safety failures. These health and safety failures saw workers exposed to a variety of risks, including: exposure to lead, falls from height and being crushed by falling objects.

The managing director of the Company was criticised by the HSE for “flagrant lack of attention” to the safety of employees at the Stratford-upon-Avon based company.

Following a tip-off from a concerned employee, the HSE carried out an investigation that resulted in 4 Prohibition and 4 Improvement Notices being issued. Workers at the plant were found to be spray-painting fuel tanks without appropriate safety equipment, even though the paint contained toxic lead chromate. Specialist HSE inspectors took air, blood and urine samples to assess the workers’ exposure to lead, and five of them were found to have higher levels than the UK average.

The workers were required to work from beneath half-tonne vessels that they were painting, with nothing to prevent them from being crushed if the lifting equipment, which had not been maintained or checked properly, had failed.

To paint the tops of the tanks, which were two metres above the concrete floor, the workers simply stood on them, with no equipment to stop them from falling. The managing director ignored a Prohibition Notice in relation to this unsafe practice and continued to instruct his employees to work on top of the tanks.

The Company pleaded guilty to the following breaches of health and safety legislation:

Regulation 6(1)(c) of the Control of Lead at Work Regulations 2002
Regulation 4(1) of the Work at Height Regulations (WAHR) 2005
Regulation 8(1)(c) of Lifting Operation Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998
Regulation 21(1) of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992
Regulation 13(2) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999

The Company was also found guilty of contravening Prohibition Notices on 3 occasions. As a result, it was fined a total of £70,000 and ordered to pay £27,507 in costs. It is understood that the Company is now in administration.

The managing director was fined £17,000 with £9169 in costs after pleading guilty to breaching reg.4(1) of the WAHR 2005 and s33(1)(g) of the HSWA 1974 and he was banned from directing any company for five years under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.

An HSE inspector commented:

Companies and their managing directors have a legal responsibility to protect their employees. No one should be expected to work in the conditions found at (the company), and it is quite right that an employee contacted HSE to complain. Failure to properly manage health and safety can have catastrophic results.

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