Concrete firm fined £160,000 over employee's death

A concrete manufacturing firm has been fined £160,000 over the death of a worker who became trapped while cleaning a production line.

Colin Thomas, a team leader at Tobermore Concrete Products Limited, died after becoming trapped by a horizontal latch conveyor while working at the firm's main production site in County Londonderry on 26 April 2023.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSENI) inspector Kiara Blackburn said the incident was "tragic and wholly preventable."

The firm admitted a single health and safety offence at Londonderry Crown Court on Thursday.

Mr Thomas had been performing cleaning duties at the company's HESS1 block manufacturing plant on the day he died.

HSENI said he had entered a section of the production line known as the pit area and which was located behind a perimeter fence fitted with an interlocked access gate.

While carrying out his duties, a horizontal latch conveyor designed to transfer product across the plant moved, trapping Mr Thomas between the moving conveyor and the fixed structure of the plant.

HSENI found that energy to the HESS 1 production line had not been properly isolated and locked out prior to the cleaning activity being undertaken.

According to HSENI, while access gates to the production line were fitted with safety interlocks, it was not clear to employees which particular sections of the plant were de-energised as a result of opening each interlocked gate.

Additional safety features such as safety light sensors, used to stop the movement of equipment, were not present on the production line in question, HSENI said, despite being present in other areas of the facility.

Blackburn said: "Employers must ensure that access to dangerous moving parts of equipment is prevented, and that suitable and sufficient risk assessments and isolation and lockout procedures are in place and followed where employees are required to carry out cleaning and maintenance tasks"

HSENI said its investigation also also found failings in relation to the supervision of employees.

Those failings, HSENI said, led to unsafe practices that were not adequately managed by the company.

There is an onus on employer, Blackburn said, to provide workers with "adequate information, instruction and training in order to fulfil their jobs safely", adding that there must be adequate supervision to ensure "such information, instruction and training is being implemented and followed."