A contractor has been fined after a worker fell from a tipping bucket on a forklift truck in Kent.
Aaron Back spent months in hospital and was left “physically ruined” after the incident at the Emir site on Wotton Road in Ashford on 28 March 2023.
He was contracted by South East Refurbishment to carry out work dismantling pipework and was in a raised tipping bucket on a forklift when he fell out of it to the concrete floor below.
In a victim statement, Back said: “I worked hard for the company and I have been given a lifetime sentence. I would give anything to be normal again, to be back to being me.”
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that a scissor lift had been ordered to do the work but was too tall to enter the site, so a forklift was used instead.
HSE found working at height failings
The HSE investigation found that no suitable arrangements were in place to manage the company’s contractors and ensure safety on the site. No actions had been taken by the company either to ensure a different safe system of working was undertaken.
HSE found significant failings by the company relating to unsafe work at height over a prolonged period – relevant advice and enforcement regarding control of contractors and unsafe working at height was given from 2013.
South East Refurbishment Ltd, of Rochester, Kent, pleaded guilty to breaching section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. It was fined £90,000 and ordered to pay costs of £27,241 at Margate Magistrates’ Court on 7 July.
