Plymouth Firm Fined after Death of Worker

A Plymouth fish processing firm has been fined half a million pounds by the HSE after a young employee died when a stack of boxes struck him.

Incident

Twenty two year old Tomas Suchy was helping to stack pallets of frozen fish when another lot of boxes fell on top of him. Tomas, an employee of Interfish Limited, suffered multiple severe injuries which he later died from.

Investigation

The Health and Safety Executive investigated the incident and found that staff had been given no instruction on how to safely store the pallets and that there was no safe system of work in place. Furthermore, it was found that there was no written procedure for how to appropriately deal with falls of stock when this occurred.

After pleading guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974., Interfish Limited, of Wallsend Industrial Estate, Cattedown Wharves, Plymouth, was fined £500,000. The company was also ordered to pay costs of £24,800.

Emma O’Hara, HSE inspector, said:

“Safe stacking of stock is a cross-industry necessity and can often be overlooked when considering safe systems of work. Duty holders need to ensure that they are stacking safely and that they have a plan for dealing with any unforeseen circumstances such as a fall of stock.”

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Source: Health & Safety Executive