just thought in would paste this incident by one of the biggest companies in the uk,serious neglect by them regarding no edge protection man dead, but the penalty to amec was really pennies.
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Two firms given big fines for power-station fatality
06 June 2011
Energy firm RWE npower and construction giant AMEC Group Ltd must pay £510,000 in fines and costs after a maintenance worker fell to his death at a power station in South Wales.
Agency worker Christopher Booker was working at RWE npower’s Aberthaw Power Station in the Vale of Glamorgan, when the incident took place on 10 June 2007. AMEC Group had been contracted to place gates inside the pit of a water-cooling system to prevent sea water from entering the cavity while workers carried out renovations on the pit. The work was part of a multi-million pound project at the facility to reduce hazardous emissions from the plant. Mr Booker was part of a team of nine workers, which had been called in to carry out grinding work to provide an effective seal of the pit.
In order to install the gates, sections of the floor gratings at the top of the pit had been removed, but no edge protection was placed around the openings. As daylight faded, lights were directed towards those doing the grinding work, which left the floor gratings at the top of the pit in near darkness. Mr Booker climbed up a ladder to the top of the pit and, as he stepped on to the gratings, he fell 12m down one of the openings and suffered fatal chest injuries.
The HSE’s investigation found that no precautions had been taken to prevent workers from accessing the openings on the platform. HSE inspector, Caroline Bird, explained that the incident could have been avoided if scaffold barriers and edge protection had been erected around the opening.
Inspector Bird said: “This tragic case highlights the consequences of failing to do something as simple as adding protection to an opening in a walkway.
"Inadequate planning and a poor choice of safety control measures meant that a very obvious hazard remained.”
RWE npower plc appeared at Cardiff Crown Court on 3 June and pleaded guilty to breaching s2(1) of the HSWA 1974. It was fined £250,000 and ordered to pay £30,000 in costs.
AMEC Group Ltd appeared at the same hearing and pleaded guilty to reg. 11(1) of the MHSWR 1999 and was fined £200,000 plus £30,000 in costs.
The court heard that RWE npower was prosecuted for a previous incident at the same facility, which took place in February 2007. A contractor was injured while removing a valve system on the station’s general compressed air system because the air supply was not safely and securely isolated. The firm pleaded guilty to s3(1) of the HSWA 1974 and was fined £8000.
AMEC Group also had a previous related conviction, having been fined £150,000 in September 2005 following a fall-from-height fatality at an oil rig in the North Sea.
Following the joint sentencing over the pit fatality, inspector Bird said: “Both companies had a duty of care to Mr Booker that they failed to meet – with catastrophic consequences. This awful incident could so easily have been prevented had the correct safety measures been taken.
“Employers have a duty to manage the risk of falls from height, including providing protection around the edge of openings. It is completely unacceptable that this sort of risk was not managed."
AMEC Group released a statement after the hearing, which said: “We would like to express our deepest sympathy to Mr Booker’s family for their sad loss. We pleaded guilty and cooperated fully with the investigation throughout. Health and safety are of the highest priority for us, and no loss of life and no injury are acceptable. We have made sure that lessons learned from this tragic event have been taken on board and will continue to do so
