Construction company fined after worker is fatally run over by dumper truck

A construction company has been ordered to pay £43,715 in fines and costs after one of its employees died in an accident on a building site.

George Rogers, 62, was killed in 2003 when he was catapulted from a dumper truck, which then ran over his body.

According to the Salisbury Journal, Rogers was helping to tidy up the building site by driving a dumper truck filled with spoil to get rid of the load, despite not being authorised to drive a dumper truck.

The truck went over a sunken trench and the jolt had thrown him out of his seat, over the front of the dumper truck's bucket and on to the ground. The truck then drove over him.

According to the HSE this is a well-known hazard with dumper trucks, and Castleway Developments Ltd, which admitted at Salisbury Crown Court to failing to ensure the safety of its employees, should have taken precautions against it.

The company's failings included:

• inadequate training for employees on using plant and machinery;
• no adequate system of checking plant and machinery;
• no training verification system;
• no site traffic plan or control of speed on site machinery; and
• no adequate system for controlling use of plant or machinery on site.

Castleway have since taken steps to correct all these issues.

Ian Dixey, prosecuting for the HSE, said the delay in bringing the matter before the court was due to a lengthy investigation by police and the executive and an inquest, which did not take place until January 2006.

Fining the company £30,000 and ordering them to pay £13,714 costs, Judge Keith Cutler said the company's failings had been contributed to Rogers' death, but were not so important as Rogers' own wrongful actions in driving machinery when he was not authorised to do so.