Concrete producer fined £1m after worker’s death

A concrete producer has been fined £1m after the death of a 24-year-old man at one of its sites.

Stewart Ramsey suffered fatal head injuries while working for Creagh Concrete Products at its base in Hoveringham near Nottingham on 15 March 2017.

The accident happened when Ramsey and his colleagues were using a metal grab to unload a concrete building product from some trailers. His head became trapped in the grab’s jaws after a rope snapped.

Creagh, whose head office is in Toomebridge in Northern Ireland, was sentenced at Nottinghamshire Crown Court on 5 April. The company admitted it had failed to make sure its employees carried out lifting operations safely, and pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety laws.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the firm did not have a safe system of work for using the grab and had not carried out a relevant risk assessment.

The HSE said that both the grab and a forklift truck being used at the time were in poor condition, and “neither should have been in service”.

After the hearing, HSE inspector Amandip Dhanda said the death could “easily have been prevented” if the employer had identified and managed the risks.

“The work equipment being used at the time of the incident should not have been in use, and the employer would have known this had they effectively followed their own health and safety systems,” he added.

Ramsey’s mother Carol Hansford described him as a “one-in-a-million son”.

She added: “I know a lot of people say that, but he really was out of this world. He was an amazing brother, grandson, uncle and nephew… All he did was go to work. Things like this shouldn’t happen – it destroys families forever.”