Fatality fine exceeds one third of firm's profit

摘要

A precision engineering company has been fined ￡500,000 and ordered to pays costs of ￡145,487 after an employee was killed when part of a press fell onto him. The fine equates to 36% of the most recent pre-tax profit made by the offender, Graham Engineering. The incident occurred on 21 May 2018 at a site in Whitehall Industrial Estate in Nelson, Lancashire, where Graham Engineering manufactures steel containers and drums for the nuclear, aerospace and medical industries. The company had purchased a Hugh Smith 1000 tonne capacity press in 2015. In 2017, the manufacturing director of the company, Stuart Fraser, wanted to use the press to make MRI scanner components for Siemens. In order to move and inspect the press before it was used, Peter Egan, an employee, recommended specialist lifting equipment because of its weight and unusual design. Despite the recommendation, the company decided to use two forklift trucks to raise the 20-tonne middle section onto sleepers. The lift exceeded the forklifts' safe working load limits by between four and five tonnes. The company twice used this technique, on which Fraser gave the operatives a toolbox talk.