A heating, ventilation and air conditioning firm in Wednesbury has been fined thousands of pounds after a man was crushed to death whilst working in its warehouse.
58-year-old Ronald Meese, who was the company’s production supervisor, had been stacking metal tubes in the warehouse when the incident happened in July 2011.
The company, Roberts-Gordon Europe Ltd, was investigated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and, on 7th March, was prosecuted for safety failings.
Wolverhampton Crown Court heard how Mr Meese was moving numerous bundles of tubes into stacks with the aid of a forklift truck. He was required to leave the cab of the truck at every trip in order to set down the timber for the next bundle of tubes to rest on.
However, on exiting the cab, one of the stacks, which weighed a tonne, fell onto him. The HSE investigation found that there had been no restraints nor racking to support the stacks and the timber that separated them was not to a standard size. The source of the timber for this particular task wasn’t controlled by the company.
The court heard how Mr Meese was a trained forklift truck driver however neither he nor his colleagues had been provided with specific training or instruction on the stacking of the tube bundles. In addition, no risk assessment had been carried out in relation to this task.
Roberts-Gordon Europe Ltd was fined a total of £150,000 and told to pay £33,000 in costs after pleading guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work.