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A Construction Company is fined £75,000 After a Worker Dies

Dawson Wam Ltd was fined £75,000 and ordered to pay costs of £34,425 at Chester Crown Court after pleading guilty to a charge under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 in that it failed to ensure the health and safety of their employees.

Peter Roberts died on 10 May 2004, after a blocked concrete pump he was trying to clear hit him on the head.

The accident happened on the site of the Quinn Glass bottle manufacturing facility in Chester. The company Dawson Wam Ltd was constructing 7,500 piles as part of the foundations. On the day of the accident there was a delay in the delivery of concrete to Mr Roberts piling rig and the concrete which remained in the flexible rubber hose began to harden and this led to a blockage.

After attempts to clear to blockage failed, compressed air was used to try and solve the problem. The flexible hose was broken up into individual sections and at least two of these were blown out with compressed air without their ends being restrained. When the last section was being unblocked, the end of the hose quickly moved upwards and stuck Mr Roberts on the head, causing fatal injuries.

Mr Roberts died four days later in hospital. The HSE prosecuted the company, alleging that it had failed to ensure the provision and maintenance of systems work which were safe and without risk to employees during the cleaning and unblocking of the piling rig and associated equipment.

The HSE argued that the company was aware that this was a high risk operation and could potentially injure its workers, but it had failed to carry out a formal risk assessment of the cleaning and unblocking of the rig, meaning that there was no safe system of working.

Inspector Robert Hodkinson of the HSE believes that water would have been a much safer option to use rather than compressed air in the unblocking of the equipment, and only compressed air should have been used if there was no other practical alternative available.

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