At a hearing at Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday (16 August) Bilston Skips – which is now in liquidation – alongside the company’s former manager Bikram Singh Mahli, were found guilty of the manslaughter of 24-year-old worker Jagpal Singh.
Both were accused of being negligent in their duty of care towards staff, with the company fined £600,000 and Mr Singh Mahli handed a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years.
The case, which was prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), followed an incident on 28 June 2012 in which it is claimed that Mr Singh fell eight feet from the top of a skip. He died later in New Cross Hospital in Wolverhampton having suffered severe injury to internal organs.
Green waste
According to the CPS, Mr Singh had been working in and around two large skips, accessible only via a metal ladder on the side, in order to rearrange green waste for compression when the incident occurred.
The arm of a JCB excavator being used to compress the waste was in very close proximity to where he was working, the CPS has claimed, although it is not known whether the arm made contact with his body before he fell.
Dan Jones, specialist prosecutor at the CPS said: “Safe working practices were not in place at Bilston Skips Limited. The risk to onsite workers had not been considered and was not managed.
“The gross neglect of health and safety measures by the company and its manager was so serious that it was criminal. It led directly to the fatal incident that killed Jagpal Singh.
“The CPS continues to work with the police and Health & Safety Executive investigators to bring to justice those who fail in their duty of care towards workers, failing their trust and endangering lives.”
There was no record of any Health and Safety-qualified individual on-site, according to the CPS.
Bilston Skips Limited was charged with one charge of corporate manslaughter and one Section 2 Health and Safety charge (HSWA). Bikram Singh Mahli was charged with gross negligence manslaughter with one Section 37 Health and Safety (HSWA) offence to which he pleaded guilty to at the start of trial.
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