Jail sentences for Safety Failures

The news has contained some recent examples of jail sentences for safety failures.

Haulage Company Director and Mechanic sent to jail for four deaths

A haulage company boss and a mechanic have both been jailed following a tipper truck crash in 2015 that killed four people in Bath. The lorry driver was cleared of dangerous driving and careless driving charges.
The Company Director (MG) and the mechanic were found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter in December 2016. The case was widely reported in the papers. Lack of suitable and qualified maintenance of the brakes and the truck led to the four deaths, which included a four-year-old child. Bristol Crown Court heard how Gordon, whose company made around £500,000 a year, skimped on repair bills and encouraged truckers to drive dangerously so he could maximise turnover. An accident investigator who examined the crashed lorry, which had 441,000 miles on the clock, said it was the worst HGV he had ever inspected.

The Judge, Mr Justice Langstaff told the pair:

You knew that being casual about the safety risked the lives of others. Your failures are inexplicable.
If they were one-off failures that would be bad enough, but they are not. They were part and parcel of the way you approached your responsibilities.

MG (the owner of the lorry firm Grittenham Haulage) was jailed for seven years and six months, and the mechanic (PW) was jailed for five years and three months.

Director jailed – Warehouse roof repaired “as cheaply as possible”

MR, Director at Al Amin Wholesale, has received a two and a half year prison sentence for the death of a contractor and the serious injury of another. MR commissioned two Polish workers to carry out the roof repairs and gutter cleaning through the services of an interpreter and did not discuss procedures, risk assessments (RAMS), PPE and other safety issues. The Company pleaded guilty to breaching S3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work at and was fined £144,000 with costs of £44,600.

The prosecution told the court that the two workers should not have been considered competent roofers and stated: “Al Amin and MR should have warned the workers that the roof was fragile. Neither did so. There was no protection to stop a person falling off or through the roof. [the two workers] should not have been considered competent roofers. They were simply labourers. Nothing was done to assess their competence.”

According to West Midlands police ”

His main priority had been to get roof repairs done as cheaply as possible with disregard to the safety of workers. The recklessness and negligence shown in this case had led directly to the death and we are pleased the severity of this was recognised in court. The main priority was to get the job done as cheaply as possible with complete disregard for the safety of these workers – with tragic consequences. We hope this sentence sends out a message to others than health and safety is not an optional extra.