Employee run over by forklift

A Nottinghamshire timber company has been fined £15,000 after an employee was run over by a forklift truck in its yard.

In a prosecution brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Nottingham Magistrates’ Court heard that James Abrahams, 21, was walking alongside the forklift to steady a pallet of fencing being transported at Jon Walker Timber Product’s facility at Mansfield Lane, Calverton in July 2012.

He suffered leg fractures, broken and dislocated toes and deep grazing in the incident. Abrahams was hospitalised for 12 days and unable to work for a number of months. He has not returned to the company.

An HSE investigation found there was no safe system of work for transporting pallets through the yard. A risk assessment was not carried out and employees had not been provided with adequate training, information or instruction.

Pedestrians and vehicles should not have been working in such close proximity. It had become usual procedure, when pallets were leaning or unstable, for employees to walk alongside forklift trucks to hold the loads steady.

It was this unsafe practice that led to the incident. The forklift driver’s licence had expired four months prior to the incident and forklifts were operated by other unlicensed drivers.

The court heard that the firm had been issued with an Improvement Notice in 2001 for a lack of risk assessments, and written advice had previously been given by HSE on workplace transport issues, including forklift driver training.

Jon Walker Timber Products pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and Regulation 3(1)(a) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
The company was also ordered to pay £9,850 costs.