Judge finds failure to assess risks was a significant cause of electrician's death

摘要

A specialist engineering firm has been ordered to pay ￡212,500 in fines and costs after a travelling overhead crane crushed an electrician as he was trying to replace a control cable at the firm's factory in Preston, Lancashire. Liam O'Neill suffered fatal injuries on 12 March 2011 while working at Assystem UK's Bamber Bridge site, from where the firm provides design services to the aerospace, automotive and nuclear industries. The plant's workshop, which was 30 metres long and 15 metres wide, incorporated a travelling crane that was controlled from the floor by a hand-held box on a flex that dangled down to about a metre above the ground. The crane, which travelled quite slowly (at a maximum of about walking pace), could move up and down the workshop as well as horizontally.