Firm fined after worker hit by forklift

A Lincolnshire farming company has been fined after a worker was hit by a forklift truck.

Agency worker Algis Jevsejevas, 45, fractured his left leg in the incident at CW Dobbs and Son's premises near Spalding on 21 October 2010.

Mr Jevsejevas, who was living in Kings Lynn at the time of the incident but has since returned to his home in Lithuania, was walking across the floor of a potato grading shed to get labels for boxes when he was hit by the reversing vehicle.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found the company had failed to ensure the shed was organised in such a way that vehicles and pedestrians could move around safely.

After the hearing HSE inspector Neil Ward said:

"This incident need not have happened. The company should have made sure, so far as was reasonably practicable, that there was physical segregation between its workers and its vehicles.

"Since the incident, the farmer has put up a barrier but has also moved the labels to another part of the shed, next to the grading line, so people don't have to walk across the shed. This goes to show how simple and inexpensive preventative measures can be."

CW Dobbs and Son Ltd, of Home Farm, Hollands Chase, West Pinchbeck, Spalding, pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 4(1) of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 at Spalding Magistrates' Court today. The company was fined £7,000 and ordered to pay £2,588 costs.

To view this press release via the HSE website click - HERE

Notes to editors

1.The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to prevent death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice, promoting training, new or revised regulations and codes of practice, and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk
2.Regulation 4(1) of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 states: "Every employer shall ensure that every workplace, modification, extension or conversion which is under his control and where any of his employees works complies with any requirement of these Regulations which- a.applies to that workplace or, as the case may be, to the workplace which contains that modification, extension or conversion; and
b.is in force in respect of the workplace, modification, extension or conversion."

HSE statistics can be found at

www.hse.gov.uk/statistics