Contractor fined after employee suffers life-changing injuries

A specialist electric engineering contractor has been fined £60,000 after an employee suffered life-changing injuries.

Instrument and Control Services, based in Stoke-on-Trent, pleaded guilty at Newcastle-under-Lyme Magistrates Court to a charge of breaching health and safety regulations.

One of its employees was trapped when a top-heavy electrical control panel weighing around 700kg which he was moving fell. He suffered serious crush injuries, including a fracture that split the left and right side of his lower pelvis apart, in the incident in February 2016.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the company failed to properly assess the risks involved and to provide both a safe system of work and the proper instructions and training needed for moving the panel.

HSE inspector Marie-Louise Riley-Roberts said: “Those in control of work have a responsibility to assess risk and to devise safe methods of working which their employees should then be trained in.

“If Instrument and Control Services Ltd had ensured that their employees were following to a safe system of work, based upon proper planning, then the life changing injuries sustained by this worker could have been prevented.”