Workplace Report (December 2013)

Health & safety - HSE Monitor

Price of a life?

Electrician Liam O’Neill was crushed to death by an overhead crane at a Preston factory in 2011. He died in hospital seven days after the incident.

Engineering firm Assystem UK has been fined just £160,000 and ordered to pay £52,500 in costs after pleading guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

HSE inspector Stuart Kitchingman, speaking after the hearing, said: “Liam tragically lost his life because his employer didn’t think about the potential consequences of having a working platform in the path of an overhead crane.”


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