Mining firm fined £400,000 for double fatality

Prosecutions and Claims |
27.08.2008

The Scottish Coal Company has been fined £400,000 over the deaths of two workers who were killed when their car was crushed by a 100-tonne dump truck.

The incident happened at the Pennyvennie open-cast mine in East Ayrshire in February 2007.

The driver of the dump truck couldn't see Colin Ferguson and Brian French's Land Rover because it was in a blindspot. The two men were maintenance staff for Castlebridge Plant, also owned by The Scottish Coal Company's parent, Scottish Resources Group.

Ayr Sheriff Court heard that it was common for workers to drive round the site in Land Rovers, accessing live dig areas.

The Scottish Coal Company, which is the largest coal producer in Scotland and the largest open-cast coal mining firm in the UK, admitted failing to take reasonable steps to ensure the safety of non-employees, contrary to Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

On 26 August, Sheriff John Montgomery imposed a fine of £400,000.

He said the accident was strikingly similar to another at the site in March 2005 where a supervisor had narrowly managed to escape from a Land Rover before it was crushed by an excavator.

"That, however, should have alerted the company of the need to put in place systems designed to reduce the risks of similar accidents occurring again," Montgomery said.

"They failed to do so and that failure is, in my view, of considerable magnitude."

HSE inspector Norrie Buchanan said the accident was the result of failure to have a safe system of work. The company should have insisted that plant vehicles withdrew when smaller ones needed access or that all staff carried two-way radios.

He said earth-moving vehicles have poor visual fields due to their large size so employers need to consider extra measures: "Installing an additional camera on the side of the dump truck, fitting a raised roof beacon or other means of improving visibility on the Land Rover could prevent similar incidents in the future."