Fish farm company fined £860,000 for failings that led to man’s death LT
An experienced fish farm worker drowned after he was crushed between a boat and a barge as he tried to disembark a moving transfer vessel.
The company that assistant fish farm manager Clive Hendry worked for, formerly Marine Harvest and now known as Mowi, admitted health and safety failings that could have prevented his death and it was fined £860,000 by Sheriff Sara Matheson at Inverness Sheriff Court on Tuesday, May 9.
The sheriff expressed sympathy to Mr Hendry’s family and friends who were in court, saying: “[There is] nothing I can do to bring him back.”
She added that what she could do was to bring home to companies the importance of health and safety in the workplace to prevent a repetition of such deaths.
Despite efforts by colleagues to save 58-year-old Mr Hendry, he slipped out of his flotation jacket as another worker tried to haul him out of the freezing water. He had tried to get off one of the company’s transfer vessels onto a floating facility anchored in the loch.
But the work boat was still moving forward slowly towards the anchored structure and his pelvis was crushed within seconds, despite the boat being put into reverse immediately.
Inverness Sheriff Court said the last words he spoke to his would-be rescuer were “my legs are f **** d”, before he sank below the surface at Mowi Scotland’s Ardintoul fish farm on Loch Alsh, near Kyle of Lochalsh, on February 18, 2020. The court heard the water temperature was between 6.1 and 8.8 degrees centigrade, and a reflex breath action forced an involuntary intake of water into the unconscious man’s lungs and he drowned.
Efforts to revive him by fellow workers with CPR, a defibrillator, plus actions by ambulance paramedics and Broadford Hospital staff failed. He was pronounced dead about 90 minutes after the 3pm incident.
Principal fiscal depute David Glancy said: “What should have happened was dialogue about how Mr Hendry’s safe transfer could be achieved.
“Instead he was left with the responsibility for his own actions and he had not been told what and what not to do”.
The prosecutor said the company had since taken action to improve marine safety. For the company, Peter Gray KC told the court: “Mowi takes its responsibilities to its employees safety very seriously.
“It is a matter of great regret and concern that Mr Hendry lost his life due in part to the failings of the company.
“It was a completely routine transfer which had been carried out by experienced employees as part of their daily routine and that no transfer would take place until the vessel was stationary.
“It will never be known why Mr Hendry departed from that practice. But the company recognises its responsibilities fully.”
The company pleaded guilty to failing to make risk assessments for the safe transfer of employees from its larger vessels to a structure known as a "Sea Cap", which houses a galley, toilets and other accommodation with computers controlling some fish farm functions.
It also admitted failing to monitor safe systems of work to ensure safe transfers and failing to provide supervision to ensure flotation devices were properly secure so they would not become detached, as happened in Mr Hendry’s case.
Afterwards Mr Hendry’s partner, Catriona Lockart said: “My life has been destroyed by what happened – and I don’t believe Mowi have changed the way they operate.
“It is just devastating to me to think he had the most horrific death. He just longed for the day he would retire so he could go fishing.”
Ms Lockhart is taking civil legal action to sue Mowi for their failings.