Big firms, small fines

Companies with annual turnover running to hundreds of millions are continuing to face relatively trivial fines for safety offences.

In April, John Laing Services Ltd was fined £175,000 and ordered to pay £40,000 costs following the deaths of construction workers Anthony Fear and Roy Anderson on a central London site in 1995. And car manufacturer Ford was fined £50,000 plus costs for two preventable accidents at its Leamington foundry in 2003. One worker was off work for six months after his foot was crushed between a tilting furnace and a platform, while another suffered burns after falling 12ft into warm slag.