UPVC manufacturer Solarframe Limited was sentenced for safety breaches after a machine operative was crushed under falling materials.
Sheffield Magistrates’ Court heard that on 19 July 2017, an agency worker was assisting the driver of a forklift truck (FLT) in cataloguing and sorting UPVC materials that were stored on long metal frames called ‘stillages’, which in turn were stacked on top of one another on top of a wheeled dolly. The FLT was being used to pull out the dollies and stacks and lift each individual stillage down so the contents could be inspected and tidied at the yard in Fields End Industrial Park, Rotherham.
The FLT driver began to restack the completed stillages onto a pile on the dolly, when the tips of the FLT forks protruded beyond the dolly and caught underneath the stillages stacked behind it. The stillages became unbalanced and fell on to a 56-year-old worker who was in the yard looking for materials.