Recycling firm admit health and safety failures following fatal injury

Managers at a recycling firm have admitted health and safety failures after a worker was killed in 2017.

Stuart Towns, 35, died after suffering head injuries after being struck from above whilst working at the Alutrade Ltd site in Oldbury.

Wolverhampton Crown Court was told that material would get blocked so employees would attempt to resolve the issues themselves by using shovels or climbing into the hopper itself.

Back in 2015, the company was visited by the Health and Safety Executive who sent a Notification of Contravention letter due to the absence of gates on a piece of recycling machinery.

But by 2017, the gates were damaged again with CCTV showing numerous employees, including Towns, going underneath the machinery, which was not isolated or repaired.

This enabled staff to continue to go under the machinery whilst it was in operation. Sadly Towns did so on 24 July and was struck causing him fatal head injuries.

Two company directors and the Health & Safety Manager – Malcolm George, 55, Kevin Pugh, 46, and Mark Redfern, 61, admitted failing to ensure the health, safety and welfare of the company’s employees.

Ben Southam, of the CPS Special Crime Division who charged the case, said: “The company had a legal duty to provide a safe system of work to protect their employees from this avoidable serious accident. The CPS case was that their failure to do so caused Stuart’s death.

“These convictions will not bring back Stuart Towns but I hope that they will do something to bring some closure to his family who have waited for this day for so long.”