Quarry company fined over employee death (From Falmouth Packet)

Quarry company fined over employee death

4:38pm Thursday 4th September 2008 in News

The death of 42-year-old Robert Bickley while working at Carnsew Quarry, Penryn in July 2004 led to his employers, Aran Resources Ltd of Longdowns, being fined £75,000 and ordered to pay £30,000 towards the prosecution's costs at Truro Crown Court today.

Mr Bickley, who lived with his parents in Comfort Road, Mylor Bridge, died when he was emptying diesel from a redundant tank and stumbled or leaned against a mesh guard which deflected against the primary crushing machine's flywheel as it revolved at 305 revolutions a minute. He suffered a major head injury.

His death, said Judge Paul Darlow, was "unfortunate and entirely unnecessary" because the guard was inadequate to prevent access to dangerous parts of the machine. "It seems to me that in the design, construction or maintenance this guard fell a long way short of acceptable standards," he declared.

Mrs Anna Vigars, prosecuting, said that the crusher was one of the largest pieces of machinery at the quarry The flywheel was next to the diesel tank which became redundant when the power source was changed to electricity. Saturdays were set aside for maintenance programmes and Mr Bickley was draining the tank when the accident happened. He was not working on the crusher itself, if he had been he would have isolated it.

The mesh guard should have been 850mm from the flywheel but in fact the gap was only 34 mm and a force of only 10 kg was needed to deflect it. Mr Bickley was struck by the mesh when it became entangled with the flywheel.

Keith Morton in mitigation stressed that the company was very health and safety conscious with all workers being fully instructed. It had a culture of operating safely and it had never been prosecuted before.

The overwhelming probability was that Mr Bickley had accidentally come into contact with the flywheel because the mesh guard was not sufficiently rigid. There were no witnesses of the accident.

"The prosecution suggest that Mr Bickley positioned himself between the tap on the tank and the flywheel when the guard distorted, presumably because he came into contact with it," said Mr Morton.

"If that is right, then we regret to say Mr Bickley placed himself in danger and acted completely out of character because it involved him positioning himself in a gap of about 16 inches. The practice at the quarry is that you do not work in such proximity to the flywheel when it is operating."

It was agreed that Mr Bickley was a very safety conscious man. He was an experienced, trusted, popular and highly competent worker whose death had affected everyone at the quarry very deeply.

An inquest jury in February of last year returned a verdict of accidental death.

The company pleaded guilty in June to having failed to ensure that people working at the quarry were competent to do the work or were instructed and supervised by someone who was competent. It also admitted failing to ensure that measures were taken to prevent access to any dangerous part of the machinery in that guards to the flywheel and other parts did not comply with the regulations.