Meynell Plant Hire Ltd of the UK was fined £25,000 with £10,500 costs after pleading guilty in Leicester Crown Court on 22 February to breaching regulation eight of the Lifting Operations & Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 (LOLER).
The case was brought after the death of employee Adrian Wood in June 2000. He was killed when his truck overturned and trapped him. The court heard that the truck over turned because its knuckle boom loader crane was lifting a load without stabilisers being properly deployed. Both legs were down but only one was out.
It was this fatal acident that prompted the Health & Safety Executive, which brought the prosecution, to issue a notice warning that all truck cranes should be fitted with stabiliser interlocks or a similar mechanical device to prevent them being used without stabilisers being out and down.
An HSE official told ConnectingCranes after the court case: ‘The court has supported our view that although the operator made a mistake on that day, that mistake should not have been able to kill him. If the technology exists [to prevent these accidents], it should be supplied.’
The HSE added that it was taking no action against Atlas Hydraulic Loaders, which had supplied the crane only two months before the accident.
The implications of this case will be explored in the April issue of Cranes Today.
