A steel company in Sheffield has appeared in court after a catalogue of safety errors led to a worker being killed in December 2012.

42-year-old Robert Ismay, a father-of-three from Thirsk, was delivering bundles of steel tubes, 7.5 metres in length to Daver Steels Ltd’s site when he was knocked off a lorry and crushed by the tubes, weighing three-tonnes.

Today, (17th April), Sheffield Crown Court was told by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) that the operation, which should have just been straight-forward unloading of the tubes was instead plagued by errors which ultimately led to Mr Ismay’s death.

A visiting delivery driver, Mr Ismay had parked his lorry across the road from the site on the day of the accident, with Daver Steels making no checks regarding what was being offloaded to how the load was positioned.

A forklift truck driver, who was trained but had little experience, was asked to lift the tubes, however the forks’ reach was actually too short and so, when they were raised, the tubes fell and struck Mr Ismay, pushing him off the trailer and onto the pavement. The steel tubes crashed down behind him and he was fatally wounded.

The court heard how an inspection by the company would have identified exactly what was being delivered and shown that the only safe way to unload the stock was to use a crane, which the firm had, and position the truck in a loading bay instead of the busy road outside.

The company was fined £62,000 along with £38,000 in costs after it admitted to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.