Daw Mill deaths fine will not ‘cripple’ UK Coal

COAL firm UK COAL, which is facing fines over the deaths of three of its workers on a site in Warwickshire, has been told the penalties would not “cripple” the company.

Sitting at Sheffield Crown Court yesterday, Mr Justice MacDuff adjourned sentencing of Doncaster-based UK Coal until later this year and indicated he would not impose fines at a severe level on a company in a “pretty desperate situation”.

UK Coal had previously admitted breaches of health and safety following the deaths at Daw Mill of Trevor Steeples and Paul Hunt, in separate incidents in 2006, and Anthony Garrigan in 2007.

A fourth man, Paul Milner, also died in 2007 at Welbeck colliery in Nottinghamshire which has since closed.

The company admitted seven breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 at an earlier hearing.

Mr Steeples died in June 2006 from asphyxiation due to oxygen deprivation when he was exposed to high levels of methane.

Mr Hunt died in August 2006 when he fell from an underground transporter into the path of a moving ‘train’.

Mr Garrigan died in January 2007 while helping to install rockbolts to keep a tunnel wall in place and was crushed when more than 100 tonnes of coal and stone fell onto him.

Mr Milner died in November 2007 while attempting to install roof supports and was crushed when 90 tonnes of rock fell onto him.