A civil engineer, FP McCann, has been fined ￡150,000 after the body of an em-ployee was found beside a dumper truck at its Knockloughrim Quarry premises in Magherafelt, County Lon-donderry. On 13 March 2015, Victor Nicholl was driving a dumper truck to transfer material from the crushing and screening plant to a stockpile area within the quarry. His body was found close to the front wheels of the truck, which had stopped in the safety berm (edge protection) around the stock-pile area. An examination of the truck found low brake efficiencies and the absence of a parking brake, emergency steering and working seatbelt. Edge protection in the stockpile area was below the recommended height of 1.5m, although it had been sufficient to stop the truck. Anne Boylan, an HSE Northern Ireland principal inspector, said that the vehicle "had not been maintained in a safe condition and was not fit for use in a hazardous envi-ronment such as a quarry. Employers must ensure that work equipment, in-cluding work vehicles, undergo regular planned maintenance… Robust sys-tems must be in place to check that maintenance schedules are adhered to and vehicles are in a safe condition at all times." At Laganside Crown Court, Belfast on 31 May, the compa-ny pleaded guilty to failing: to ensure its employees' safety by providing and maintaining plant and systems of work that were safe (arts. 4(1) and 4(2)(a) of the Health and Safety at Work (Northern Ireland) Order 1978); and, as the operator of a quarry, to take the necessary measures to ensure that the quarry and its plant were, construct-ed, operated and maintained so as to ensure safety (reg. 6(1) of the Quarries Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2006). Sentencing, Judge Geoffrey Miller said there was "no direct link" between the failures and the death. The fine repre-sents 0.8% of the company's most re-cent pre-tax profit of ￡18,041,363, which it made on turnover of ￡254,496,765 in 2018.
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