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Council is fined after employee crushed to death
A YORKSHIRE council has been ordered to pay £40,000 in fines and costs after the "entirely avoidable" death of one of its gardeners crushed by a mower on an embankment.
Frank Smith was fatally injured on May 19, 2005 after the ride-on lawnmower he was using at Water End in York slid down a slope and hit a wall before flipping over and landing on top of him. The 54-year-old died at the scene.
Yesterday at York Crown Court Recorder Jonathan Hill QC heard City of York Council had taken steps since Mr Smith's "tragic and untimely death" to prevent any similar re-occurrence but said the Hayter mower was unsuitable for use in this location.
The court was told the manufacturer advised against the mower's use on slopes steeper than 19 degrees, a figure since reduced to 17 degrees, but the section of embankment where Mr Smith's machine slipped was 25.4 degrees.
Michael Elliker, prosecuting, said the mower was not fitted with a roll bar or seatbelt.
Recorder Hill said the risk assessment carried out by the council's external consultants was inadequate and lacked enough detail to give guidance to employees, while managers and supervisors had not attended the training course junior staff were sent on.
"There was a serious and substantial inadequacy in the working systems in place," said the recorder.
"Set against that is City of York had an exemplary record of health and safety issues previously."
Recorder Hill said the council immediately launched its own review into the incident and co-operated with the HSE but no fine he could impose would properly reflect the loss of a man's life.
The recorder gave the council credit for its early guilty plea, at a hearing at Harrogate Magistrates' Court last month, to one offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act of failing to ensure the safety of its employees cutting grass using ride-on lawnmowers.
He fined the local authority 20,000 and ordered it also pays 20,425 in prosecution costs, which includes the 9,332 cost of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation.
Lisa Judge, in mitigation, said the council had appointed external consultants to carry out risk assessments as it did not have specialist expertise in house but could not avoid criminal culpability.
She said roll bars were an optional extra and the council was not advised to buy them for the mowers it had hired.
"A clear risk was identified in the risk assessment but not evaluated properly," the barrister said.
"The council has overhauled all risk assessments and put a system in place for regular reviews."
After the case Terry Collins, council director of neighbourhood services, said: "We accept the findings of the court and offer our sincere condolences to Mr Smith's family.
"Following the incident we have carried out a thorough review of our health and safety procedures and have worked with the HSE to improve our working practices."
HSE principal inspector Keith King said that he was pleased the judge put on record the "entirely avoidable accident arose from serious and substantial failings".
"We think there was a clear and obvious risk – it would have been a small matter for someone competent to go and measure the incline of the bank, which was so close to the margins of safety," Mr King said.
He said the HSE is working with 20 councils across Yorkshire, as well as contractors who cut grass such as on motorway verges and estates, to ensure safety guidance for working on slopes goes beyond a "simple warning" to take extra care.
"A significant number of workers are involved, and other items of horticultural equipment – people need to be properly trained and properly supervised," Mr King said.
"As far as grass cutting goes, this fatality is pretty much a one-off but fatal accidents involving workplace transport are not uncommon and, after falls from height, are the biggest killer in all work deaths."
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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