Waste management firm Valencia has been fined £3m after two lorry drivers died in separate incidents.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated the deaths of Michael Atkin and Mark Wheatley and subsequently prosecuted Valencia, formerly known as Viridor Waste Management.
Atkin, a 63-year-old HGV driver employed by RT Keedwell, died while collecting waste paper bales at Valencia’s Earls Barton site in October 2019. He was working with a Valencia employee, who was using a forklift truck to load Atkin’s lorry with the bales. The HSE said that while loading a fourth row, some bales in the third row were dislodged and fell from the vehicle, fatally crushing the driver.
Agency driver Wheatley, 31, died in January 2020 while loading skips onto his lorry. The skips were not compatible as they were of different dimensions and the HSE said they fell at an angle onto the back of the lorry. Wheatley got onto the lorry bed to rectify the situation, but the skips overbalanced and fatally struck him.
Valencia pleaded guilty at Loughborough Magistrates’ Court to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act following both incidents and was fined £1m for the 2019 incident and £2m for the 2020 incident.
Alan Hughes, lawyer for the HSE, said: “These were two men at different stages of their lives, but the grief and pain across both families are devastating. Both deaths were avoidable. More needs to be done to make the use of vehicles on waste and recycling
sites safer.”
