Company fined £50K for forklift truck fatality

A MANCHESTER company has been fined almost £50,000 following an accident at its warehouse, which lead to the death of an employee.

Stone Superstore Ltd in Gorton was fined £40,000 and ordered to pay Manchester City Council costs of £9,221 for health and safety offences at Manchester Crown Court last week.

The conviction followed an accident at its Matthew Street warehouse in October 2010 that resulted in the death of an employee – Soran Aziz, 27 – after a crate containing around a tonne of stone floor tiles spilled from a forklift truck.

Mr Aziz suffered serious head injuries and died in hospital two days after the incident.

Environmental Health officers visited the site and found that the forklift truck driver who had spilled the tiles had not received formal training – despite it being required by the Health and Safety Executive’s code of practice.

The court also heard that although two forklift trucks were being used daily at the warehouse none of the company’s employees had received any formal training.

Stone Superstore pleaded guilty to two counts, one of a failure to adequately train, supervise and instruct staff and a further charge of a failure to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment. The fine of £40,000 was awarded for the first count with no separate penalty being given for the second count.

Councillor Nigel Murphy, Manchester City Council executive member for neighbourhoods, said: “This heartbreaking case saw a young man lose his life and our thoughts are with his family and loved ones.

“Health and safety regulations are often sneered at but they exist for good reason – to prevent avoidable tragedies like this one.”