Court imposes fines of £80,000 after fatality

Lyons Landfill and Francis Michael Lyons of Felstead, Essex, have each been fined £80,000 and been ordered to pay £35,000 legal costs, following the death of a lorry driver working on a quarry and landfill site.

They were prosecuted under Section 3(1) and Section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 respectively.

Self-employed lorry driver Nathaniel Hugh Scollan (also known as Hugh Breffni), 56, was electrocuted when the lorry-mounted crane he was operating hit overhead power lines on 10 September 2003. He was working on a combined quarry and landfill site at Hollingson Meads Quarry, Harlow.

A Health & Safety Executive investigation into the accident said the site was poorly laid out, with stockpiles encroaching near the overhead lines, inadequate signs, poorly-designed crossing points and inadequate measures taken to keep plant clear of the lines.

[Contract Journal, 15 November 2006, p 19]