29.04.2008

Switch costs Corus £200,000

Corus UK has been fined £170,000 and ordered to pay costs of £30,000 after pleading guilty to a breach of Section 2(1) of the UK’s Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

The prosecution follows the death of a 34 year-old Corus employee who was killed whilst working underneath a crane at the company's Brinsworth site in Rotherham.

A limit switch on a two block device fitted to the crane was defective, allowing the hoist rope to over-tighten and break, allowing a 260kg hook block to fall onto the worker from a height of seven metres.
He was pronounced dead at the scene on 2 July 2003

HSE Inspector David Bradley said: "This was a tragic and entirely avoidable accident. The limit switch fitted to this crane to prevent over hoisting was a safety critical device. It should have been properly maintained in a safe working condition, and regularly tested. The fact that these simple measures were not taken led to this tragic death. "