Buckinghamshire operator Delivered UK is to pay over £130,000 in fines and costs after an agency driver lost a leg following an accident at its depot.
The driver was pushing a trolley carrying parcels alongside a row of vehicles when he was hit by a reversing forklift truck at the operator’s Slough depot in September 2014.
When he reached the end of the row, the forklift truck reversed out of a shutter door and trapped his foot in the rear wheel.
The worker spent five weeks in hospital after the incident, from which he suffered fractures and crush injuries to his left foot and leg. His leg had to be amputated below the knee five months later.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which prosecuted the operator, told Reading Crown Court that there was no barrier in place to prevent forklift trucks from colliding with pedestrians at the point where the vehicle entered and exited the building.
It said the yard was not organised in a way that would allow pedestrians to access vehicles that were parked on the other side of the site safely. Furthermore, the company’s risk assessments for the use of forklift trucks and unloading and loading and had not taken physical barriers to segregate pedestrians from vehicles into consideration.
Delivered UK, of Stirling Road, Cressex Business Park, High Wycombe, pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 at Reading Crown Court on 23 September and was fined £120,000 with £10,783.04 in costs.
The company was issued with an improvement notice by HSE following the incident and the court was told that it has now made the necessary changes to enable pedestrians and vehicles to move around the yard safely.
