Scrapyard is fined £2m after worker was killed
‘Incident was waiting to happen’ at firm, claim police
DISTURBING CCTV footage showed recycling centre workers risking their lives before a man was killed by machinery. Father-of-one Stuart Towns had been working for Alutrade Ltd, in Oldbury, for just three months when he was crushed to death.
Colleagues found the 34-year-old with catastrophic head injuries caused by a hopper machine on July 24, 2017.
On Friday at Wolverhampton Crown Court, the scrap metal company was fined £2 million, with £105,000 costs.
West Midlands Police said footage from the site showed “hundreds” of health and safety breaches, including staff jumping in the hopper to clear blockages, and staff working close to a dangerous conveyer belt.
On the day of his death, Mr Towns had walked into an area beneath a hopper, which housed powerful engines used to feed a conveyor belt with scrap metal for processing.
A gate preventing workers from getting to the area had broken, and the machine should have been shut down and isolated if any kind of maintenance or cleaning work needed to be done.
Minutes later, Mr Towns was found injured and died at the scene.
Four days earlier, the forklift driver had been told not to work so close to the hopper after being spotted by managing director Malcolm George. He was seen on CCTV working dangerously close to the machinery 40 minutes before his death, but Mr George, who was standing nearby, took no action.
A police spokesman said: “A major investigation by our detectives and the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) saw an entire month’s worth of CCTV analysed, with hundreds of breaches found.
“They included workers jumping up and down on metal in a hopper to clear blockages, a forklift truck driven by Malcolm George being used to lift Mr Towns 18 feet into the air to clear a blockage, with no safety rigging, and staff walking on a conveyor belt to clear blockages.”
In court, Alutrade Ltd admitted corporate manslaughter.
George, 55, of Bromsgrove, director Kevin Pugh, 46, from Sutton Coldfield, and health and safety manager Mark Redfern, 61, of Rowley Regis, were initially charged with gross negligence manslaughter, but instead pleaded guilty to breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
They admitted the charge on the basis their failings did not cause the death, but, together, the management of the company amounted to corporate manslaughter.
George was fined £15,000 and ordered to pay costs of £7,109.
Pugh was fined £5,318 and ordered to pay £3,854 costs.
Redfern was fined £2,635 and the company ordered to pay his costs.
Senior investigating officer Det Insp Hannah Whitehouse said: “Stuart’s death should never have happened, but sadly it was an incident waiting to happen.
“He and other staff at Alutrade Ltd were operating in a culture where dangerous working practices were regularly overlooked.
“You do not need a detailed understanding of health and safety legislation to know from watching the footage that workers were frequently allowed to risk their lives. The company put profit before health and safety and it cost Stuart his life.
“I hope the convictions and hefty fines act as a deterrent to anyone else involved in the industry who hasn’t got their workers’ safety as the top priority.”
Mr Towns’ family said in a statement: “After five years we now feel we can start to focus on the happy times we shared as a family with Stuart.
“We hope that lessons can be learned from the way that Stuart died and hope that no other family goes through what we have been through. It’s now time for us to focus on the good memories we have of Stuart.”
HSE inspector Jan Willets added: “Serious injuries to workers in waste and recycling are too common and robust health and safety management by employers would reduce the risk.
“If the gates preventing access to the conveyor had been repaired, workers would not have been put at risk and Stuart Towns’ fatal injuries could have been prevented.”