A textile manufacturer has been fined £220,000 after one of its directors was killed by a reversing HGV in Rochdale. Daniel Ames was a director of The British Millerain Company Limited and had offered to stay behind at the company warehouse to wait for the return of the vehicle on 22 June 2023.
The truck arrived at around 5.30pm. Mr. Ames spoke to the driver and confirmed he would act as banksman to help the vehicle reverse into the warehouse.
During the manoeuvre, the driver lost sight of Mr. Ames and when he got out to check, he found him trapped between the vehicle and some steel storage racks in the warehouse. The driver called paramedics, but Mr. Ames died in hospital from his injuries.
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The incident was reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), who carried out an investigation into what happened. That identified a number of failings exposing employees to various risks, including having no safe system in place for reversing HGVs. Employees confirmed they had been doing the task for several years but had never received any training. This included one employee who said he had on occasion reversed HGVs into the warehouse with someone else acting as banksman – despite neither being trained to do so.