‘Crush-death’ dad’s final moments shown to jury
A JURY has been shown CCTV footage of the final moments before a maintenance engineer was fatally injured by a robotic arm at a garden landscaping supplies firm.
The footage taken by equipment inside the Hipperholme premises of Deco-Pak Limited showed 48-year-old Andrew Tibbott, believed to be from Huddersfield, working alone around the machine which was still “live”, said prosecutor Allan Compton QC.
Mr Compton said within 14 seconds of going through a gap in the fencing around the machinery, Mr Tibbott was fatally pinned by the prongs of the robotic arm.
Mr Tibbott’s son found him at the premises later that evening in April 2017, but he died from crush injuries to his chest.
Mr Compton said when Mr Tibbott went through a “gate” the light barriers should have kicked in to disable the entire robotic cell, but they had been disabled and replaced.
The company has denied a charge of corporate manslaughter following the death of Mr Tibbott, but has admitted breaching its general duty of care under Health and Safety regulations.
The business owner Michael Hall, 64, of Hullen Edge Lane, Elland, has also admitted the Health and Safety breach, but denies a charge of manslaughter by gross negligence.
Another director of the firm Rodney Slater, 62, of Wellbank View, Rochdale, has denied the same manslaughter charge and the breach of the Health and Safety regulation.
Bradford Crown Court heard that Mr Tibbott had entered the “cell” around the robotic arm to clean a sensor, but Mr Compton alleged that “within days” of the installation in April 2015, the company and senior management caused essential safety features to be bypassed or disabled.
Mr Compton alleged that repeated warnings about the dangers had been ignored and Mr Tibbott’s death had been “wholly avoidable” and was the result of systematic failure.
He alleged that Deco-Pak had put the lives of employees at risk by encouraging a culture of production at all costs and that Mr Tibbott’s death was not the consequence of an isolated failure by a well-run company that took its health and safety obligations seriously.
When he was interviewed during the investigation following Mr Tibbott’s death Hall accepted that it was “avoidable” but denied it was the result of cutting corners by Deco-Pak.
The trial is expected to last six weeks.