Company fined £240k after granddad killed by lorry

A company has been fined £240,000 after a grandfather was killed by a lorry as it reversed.

David Saint was working as an engineering manager at Northwood Consumer Ltd in Birmingham on 19 October 2023.

The 61-year-old, from Spalding, Lincolnshire, was struck by the HGV while he was walking across a service road at the Electra Park industrial estate, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said.

The company, headquartered in Telford, Shropshire, was ordered to pay the fine plus costs of £6,917 at Birmingham Magistrates' Court on Monday after admitting two breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act at an earlier hearing.

Mr Saint's daughter Samantha said: "He was my everything, there was nothing he wasn't involved in.

"My life now consists of 'what would dad do?'. I think of him and miss him every day."

An investigation by the HSE found Northwood Consumer Ltd failed to:

• Undertake a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks associated with workplace transport
• Address the movement of HGVs in its site rules
• Eliminate, as far as possible, the need for HGVs to reverse
• Provide any aids or assistance to HGVs that had to be reversed
• Display any signage to warn of the hazards arising from the movement of HGVs
• Control when HGVs would access the site

Lead HSE inspector Charlie Rowe said pedestrians killed by moving vehicles was a leading cause of workplace deaths in the country.

He described Mr Saint's death as a "tragic and shocking" case which devastated his loved ones.

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