Lawford Kidd's Blog

A new approach to health and safety prosecutions has meant that employers who commit serious breaches of health and safety are now receiving much tougher penalties, according to a recent Government report.

Impact of Health and Safety Offences Act

The report covers the five years following the introduction of the Health and Safety Offences Act in 2009, which increased the maximum penalties the courts could impose for certain health and safety offences as a deterrent for would-be offenders.

In particular, the Act:

Two roofers have received suspended sentences after a Derbyshire office worker was injured when a roll of roofing felt crashed through the ceiling of her office.

The woman was sitting at her desk when the metre-long, 37kg roll fell through a roof light and came through the ceiling, hitting her on the shoulder.

She was taken to hospital with injuries to her head, shoulder and left arm and was off work for two weeks following the incident in September 2010.

A building contractor has been sentenced after its workers were exposed to potentially deadly asbestos fibres during refurbishment work at premises in Wales.

A multinational cement firm has been fined £200,000 following the death of a worker in an explosion at its Rugby premises.

A national malt company, Pauls Malt Limited, has been fined after a worker had to have the lower part of his left leg amputated, when he became entangled in machinery inside a grain silo. His right leg was also badly broken and is still held together by plates and pins.