Updated: Corus fined £250,000 for fatality

Prosecutions and Claims |
28.02.2008

Steelmaker Corus has been fined £250,000 following the death of a worker who was hit on the head by a piece of machinery.

Employee Francis Coles died on 4 January 2003 at Corus's Trostre Tin Plate works in Llanelli.

Coles had been working on a "5-stand mill" where five rollers squeeze and stretch steel strips to make them thinner. He was helping with a roll change and had to walk through a half-metre gap between two rollers when a deflector plate descended. The plate hit Coles on the head and killed him.

HSE inspector Alan Strawbridge told HSP that it isn't clear exactly how the accident happened but that an alteration made to the mill may have caused the plate to come down unexpectedly. According to the safe system of work, pins should have been inserted to prevent such an accident but "it was not uncommon for people to ignore them," he said. "The system wasn't enforced or policed. There was a risk assessment dating back to 1995 but it didn't adequately address the risk."

An incident in 1997 should have "flagged up" the need to review risk assessments, said Strawbridge, but no action was taken. Minutes of a works safety committee show that the need to review assessments was raised at consecutive meetings between May and December 2002 but the work was never completed.

Corus (UK), trading as Corus Packaging Plus, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act for failing to take reasonable steps to ensure employees' safety, and Regulation 11 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations, which requires employers to prevent access to dangerous parts of machinery and stop the movement of dangerous parts before any person enters a danger zone.

On 19 February, Corus was fined £250,000 and ordered to pay costs of £42,965.

On behalf of Corus, Charles Feeney told Swansea Crown Court that Corus had pleaded guilty at the first opportunity, cooperated fully with HSE and police investigations and settled in full a claim for compensation from Coles' family. After the accident, the firm fitted interlock guards to the machines to prevent a recurrence.

Judge Justice John Saunders accepted that the accident was not the result of cost-cutting and that Corus had taken steps to improve safety management throughout the company.