A company that manufactures and transports wooden trusses has been fined £82,000 after a worker sustained multiple fractures when a forklift truck reversed into a stack of roof trusses that fell on him.
Luton Magistrates’ Court heard how the incident led to the employee at Bartram Manufacturing being pinned against his workbench, which resulted in fractures to his kneecap and 14 ribs. A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation into the incident, which happened on 1 March 2017, found the company had failed to manage health and safety in three separate areas.
The company failed to identify safe methods of delivering work materials inside the production areas, did not provide suitable training and did not supervise workers to ensure they worked safely. Bartram Manufacturing of High Road, Beeston, Sandy, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was ordered to pay costs of £1,804.40 as well as a victim surcharge of £170.
Following the hearing, HSE inspector Emma Page said: “Those in control of work have a responsibility to devise safe methods of working and to provide the necessary information, instruction and training to their workers in the safe system of working.
“If a safe system of work had been in place before the incident, the severe injuries sustained by the employee could have been prevented.”
