A Wirral-based food manufacturing company has been handed a £400,000 fine after an employee needed to have a leg amputated.
Sharon Bramhall’s accident resulted in the loss of a leg at Baker and Baker Products of Bromborough. 58-year-old Mrs. Bramhall needed her left leg amputating below the knee after an the incident at the employer’s Stadium Road premises.
Baker and Baker Products, purveyors of a wide range of baked goods, pleaded guilty and was subsequently sentenced at Liverpool Magistrates’ Court in March 2024. Mrs. Bramhall, in a statement provided to the court, said she felt ‘lucky’ that her accident wasn’t even worse than it was.
Mrs. Bramhall stated:
“I know I could have died. Sometimes I wake up and just wish I’d booked that night off work for some reason and none of this would have happened.”
The court heard that Mrs. Bramhall was supervising four other team members in the completion of high-level cleaning responsibilities whilst on duty on a night shift in April 2022.
She had been working as ‘a banksman’ for another employee who was maneuvering a mobile elevating work platform (MEWP). The MEWP performed a 90 degree turn into the warehouse and struck Sharon, crushing her left leg. The incident was caught on the CCTV system.
Mrs. Bramhall was hospitalised for three months and required nine surgical operations, including multiple skin grafts.
Mrs. Bramhall continued:
“I have a huge scar on my stomach from where the surgeons took a piece of it to use as a flap over my stump.
“My left leg above my stump is really badly scarred and damaged. It was trapped under the cherry picker.
“The recovery afterwards was awful. It is difficult to put in to words just how much the accident has impacted me. I have had to uproot and move my family.
“I am struggling with blistering on my stump, even now, rendering me wheelchair dependent. I am not able to leave the house on my own. I am fearful about what the future holds for me.”
A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation uncovered a series of failings on the part of Baker & Baker Products UK Limited.
The company did not have a suitable and sufficiently safe system of work in place when escorting MEWPs from their parked to location of use. They also failed to provide information, instruction and training on how to move a MEWP and in the use of banksman, as well as failing to adhere to normal practice and company policy or ensuring that a trained MEWP operator act as banskman.
If these procedures and policies been implemented, this incident may never have happened.
Baker & Baker Products UK Limited pleaded guilty to breaching section 2(1) and 33(1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. The firm received a fine of £400,000, alongside an order to pay costs of £7,266 costs.
This HSE prosecution was brought by HSE enforcement lawyers Karen Park and Matt Reynolds, alongside paralegal officer Louisa Shaw.
HSE inspector Ian Betley said:
“Sharon Bramhall suffered terrible injuries that will affect her for the rest of her life due to the failings of her employer.
“Vehicles continue to be a major cause of serious injuries in the workplace, and the first principle of any employer should be to keep people and vehicles apart.
“The risk assessment decided that someone was needed to escort the MEWP, thus a safe system of work needed to be devised. Employees should have been given appropriate banksman training, including how to effectively communicate with the driver.
“Had these been in place, Sharon’s injuries could have been avoided.”
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