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£446,000 penalty for engineering company guilty of serious safety failings (13 July 2016)

Date: 13/07/2016
Duncan Lewis, Personal Injury Solicitors, £446,000 penalty for engineering company guilty of serious safety failings

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has prosecuted a Worcestershire-based engineering company for safety failings, after a potentially dangerous ignition when an employee of Roxel (Rocket Motor) Limited inspected a rocket motor for damages received during the manufacturing process.

The employee used a fibre optic light to illuminate a conduit on the charge – and the propellant ignited as a result of the heat from the fibre optic light. The charge burned for about ten seconds, sending flames and gases out of both ends of the charge until it burnt out.

The room where the ignition occurred was set on fire – and also present in the room were four explosives charges and a Vulcan rocket motor, with a further 230kg of explosive charges in the magazine next door to the room, which still had the magazine doors open.

HSE inspectors found that two employees were working in the room and an agency worker was present in the magazine when the ignition occurred.

No one was injured in the incident, however.

HSE concluded that it was foreseeable that other propellants and charges in the room and magazine could have been ignited by the Titus charge and any subsequent fires which occurred.

At the time of the incident, the company did not know which explosives were in the building – and could not inform the emergency services as to the level of risk.

HSE also concluded that the potential to cause harm was great, due to excessive explosives material being present in the building and the number of people present nearby, including the emergency services.

It took the company more than an hour to understand the hazards present and react to the situation – and not even the on site emergency plan was made available to the Fire and Rescue Services, meaning they were put at risk when they should not have been.

HSE said it was “good fortune” that the fire did not escalate and cause harm to those in the area.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive into the incident on 16 November 2012 found that there was a lack of assessments of the risks and no safe system of work in place – the emergency plan was also not implemented.

At Worcester Crown Court on Friday, 8 July 2016, Roxel (UK Rocket Motors) Limited of Summerfield Lane, Summerfield in Kidderminster, Worcestershire pleaded guilty to breaching Sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 – and Regulation 12 of the Control of Major Accident Hazards 2015.

The company was fined £386,000 and ordered to pay costs of £60,000.

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