£1.25 million fine follows quarry crush death

Tarmac Aggregates Limited was fined £1,275,000 after 26-year-old Luke Bramston was crushed to death during maintenance work at Mountsorrel Quarry in Leicestershire. He died in June 2017 after becoming trapped between a conveyor and a feed hopper.

The contractor was working on behalf of Branston Site Services Limited and was part of a nightshift maintenance team repairing a feed hopper at the Loughborough quarry, operated by Tarmac Aggregates Limited.

He was standing on a conveyor that was located under the feed hopper and had not been effectively isolated, through cutting the power, before the repair work started. The conveyor was inadvertently switched on, trapping him against the feed hopper and fatally crushing him.

The HSE investigation into the incident found the test button on the conveyor electrical panel was not connected to the test circuit and was inoperative.