29.01.2009

Appeal fails

Two UK rail maintenance companies have failed in their legal challenge against fines totalling almost £500,000 for the death of a man while loading an aerial lift in Edinburgh in 2006.

LH Access Technology and Border Rail and Plant were each fined £240,000 by an Edinburgh sheriff last May, following the death of Neil Martin, 46, who died while helping load an aerial lift onto a trailer. Click here to see Loading death costs £500,000

Both firms claimed that the fines were well in excess of English guidelines, appeal judges were told the penalty was five times LH Access Technology's average annual profit and more than the company was worth at the time.

But the Court of Justiciary Appeal in Edinburgh backed Sheriff Nigel Morrison QC who said that the fatal accident in the early hours of March 2006 was "a serious failure of duty."