A Nottinghamshire business has been fined £1m after a young man died using unsafe equipment. Stewart Ramsay, 24, from Mansfield, was working for concrete manufacturer Creagh Concrete Products Ltd (CCP) at its Thurgarton Lane site in Hoveringham when he suffered fatal head injuries on March 15, 2017.
Mr Ramsay was trying to fix a problem that happened as he and colleagues were using a metal grab to unload Spantherm, a concrete building product, from some trailers. But the metal grab should not have been in use - with it being in poor condition and there being no outlined safe system for its use.
His head became trapped after a rope connected to the locking lever snapped. Even though the rope was tied in a double-knot, the locking mechanism released the jaws of the grab as Mr Ramsay pulled on it, causing fatal injuries.
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His mother Carol Hansford described Mr Ramsey as a ‘one in a million son’. “I know a lot of people say that, but he really was out of this world,” she said.
“He was an amazing brother, grandson, uncle and nephew. The hundreds of friends that came to the crematorium showed how well liked and appreciated he was – it was unbelievable. He was just loving, caring, thoughtful and very funny.”
“He was such a hardworking person,” Carol added. “Not only did he work at Creagh, he also was working as a doorman on weekends.
“I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. I got a knock at the door as his friends had come to tell me – I collapsed.
“It still doesn’t seem real – it’s like you’re watching a film and not at the end. All he did was go to work.
“Things like this shouldn’t happen – it destroys families forever. Nobody should have to go through what we have done these past six years.”
CCP were sentenced at Nottinghamshire Crown Court on April 5, after it admitted failing to ensure its employees carried out lifting operations safely and without training and information being in place.
An investigation by the Health and Safety executive (HSE) showed CCP did not have a safe system of work for the use of the grab and had not carried out a risk assessment to identify risks for its use. Both the grab and a fork lift truck being used at the time were in poor condition.
HSE said neither should have been in service at the time of the incident. It added CCP had failed to ensure the work equipment had been maintained properly.
Creagh Concrete Products Limited of Hoveringham, Nottinghamshire pleaded guilty of breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 in that it failed to ensure, so far as was reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all its employees. The company was fined £1,000,000 and ordered to pay costs of £47,521.08.
Speaking after the hearing HSE Inspector Mr Amandip Dhanda said: ”This tragic incident led to the avoidable death of a young man.
“Stewart’s death could easily have been prevented if his employer had acted to identify and manage the risks involved, and to put a safe system of work in place. The work equipment being used at the time of the incident should not have been in use, and the employer would have known this had they effectively followed their own health and safety systems.”
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