Worcestershire based R&S Recycling Ltd was fined £100,000, and ordered to pay almost £60,000 in legal costs, after safety officer Kenneth Swaby 43, from Canvey Island, Essex, was killed at work in February 2011.
The company of Branson’s Cross Farm, Beoley, Redditch, pleaded guilty to breaches of health and safety regulations at Worcester Crown Court in February this year (see letsrecycle.com story).
Today Lord Justice Davis, Mr Justice Wilkie and Mr Justice King, sitting at London’s Criminal Appeal Court, cut the company’s fine to £65,000.
The court heard Mr Swaby was crushed after three massive bales of compressed paper, each weighing up to a tonne, toppled from the top of a pile as he was walking past.
One of the bales hit him at premises in Beoley and he died from terrible crushing injuries despite the best efforts of the emergency services.
It was found that the company had breached health and safety rules by allowing the bales to be piled so high and letting workers move around close to them, with no exclusion zone.
‘Unsafe’
Lord Justice Davis said: “Working under unsupported stacks like this was inherently unsafe…there was a foreseeable risk of being crushed.
“The company failed to ensure that employees were not exposed to risk from falling bales.”
The judge added that “Mr Swaby had given instructions to stack the bales five high.”
Reducing the fine, the judge said that the company’s financial health had been overestimated by the judge.
“No fine can put a value on human life or replace the loss of Mr Swaby’s family,” he told the court.
Whilst acknowledging that penalties in such cases had to have a deterrent “sting”, he added: “This company cannot be said to be financially secure.”
The legal costs bill remained unchanged.
Commenting on the decision, Stephen Walker, managing director of R&S Recycling, said: “We are pleased with the outcome of the case.”
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