Ipswich Magistrates’ Court heard how on April 2013 an employee of Portmans Transport Limited of Felixstowe was assisting to unload two containers which contained two tonne crates of glass mirrors. The second container had no fork pockets or lighting, so the worker had to closely guide the fork lift truck operator to ensure the forks were in position
Some of the crates were jammed in place and as the fork lift truck operator attempted to dislodge them, one of the crates toppled onto the worker, pinning him to the side of the container. The incident has left him with life changing injuries and he will be unable to work for at least three years.
Portmans Transport Limited, of Bryon Avenue, Felixstowe, was fined a total of £9,000, and ordered to pay £917 in costs after pleading guilty to an offence under Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.
Speaking after the hearing HSE Inspector Corinne Godfrey said:
“This worker was employed by the company for less than three weeks as a Warehouse Foreman, and although he had previous job experience which involved the maintenance and repair of containers, he had never been involved with this type of unloading work known as ‘devanning’.
This incident was inevitable, neither worker had seen the procedures manual or any risk assessments/method statements relating to the unloading of containers.
The company failed to plan what should happen when it was identified that loads were not able to be readily offloaded by forklift truck.
It’s essential that before any work tasks are carried out, the relevant risks should be identified and appropriate control measures put in place to protect against them
