Health and Safety

When customers spend months working with a salesman who works hard to understand their business and to tailor products and services to their specific needs, companies often cancel that relationship in favour of transferring the customer to someone with none of that understanding of the company, the product fit and, of course, the individuals involved. The question is this: does this hangover from the 1980s have a place in the modern sales environment?

Farming partnership B A L Ackroyd has been sentenced for safety breaches, following a fatal incident involving a telescopic front loader, bales of hay and a former employee.

When Edward Warlopp left his office and walked, he walked in front of a moving lorry. The driver, taking care manoeuvring in a complex environment was paying attention his surroundings and did not notice that Mr Warlopp had walked in front if the lorry. Mr Warlopp was struck and suffered fatal injuries.

How would you feel if your company was fined GBP200,000 and ordered to pay costs of more than GBP17,000 for health and safety issues even though no-one was hurt? Ask Renault.

Two companies have been sentenced following the death of a five-year-old girl who became trapped while using a lift at her home in Weymouth. In what was clearly not a case of corporate manslaughter, the companies accepted liability. The failures were pretty bad.

A CCTV installation company from Manchester in the north west of England has been sentenced after an employee fell through a fragile roof light.

Tata Steels Billet Mill in Stocksbridge, Yorkshire, is like all steel mills a dangerous place. Tata Steel undertook a safety risk assessment relating to the lifting of a skip from a hole in the ground and found that there was a risk of injury which could be mitigated by installing a barrier around the hole. They didn't do it and someone fell in. It's cost a large fine.

Shell UK has been fined by the Aberdeen Sheriff's Court. The prosecution was brought by the UK's Health and Safety Executive after a technician was struck by a cylinder and left severely injured on the Brent Delta offshore platform.

A property developer in Manchester, England, has been convicted and sentenced after the roof and part of the rear wall of a building collapsed during demolition works. One might think that's kind of the point of demolition but not when it's done in an unsafe manner.