“Mr Smith,” said Elaine Taylor, Head of the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service Health and Safety Division, “lost his life in an entirely avoidable incident.”
She was speaking after Glasgow Sheriff Court heard how John Smith had met his death while working at the Charles Street, Springburn, premises of Railcare Limited.
The 53-year-old employee had been working for the company for 30 years when, on 15 December 2008, he was making use of an axle lathe to clean and polish sets of wheels from railway vehicles.
At the time, the Universal and Production Centre Lathe in question was around 25 years old. Because of its age, it lacked interlocking guarding. However guarding was available for the dangerous part of the machine, namely the chuck, but was not being used.
In order to clean an axle Mr Smith would loop a length of emery cloth around it, holding one end in each hand. Then, with the lathe operating at high speed and the chuck spinning towards him at 600rpm in an anti-clockwise direction, he would pull back to apply pressure to the axle surface, so as to remove the paint with which it had been coated.
On this occasion his head came in to contact with the unguarded chuck and he sustained the head injuries from which he died.
The subsequent HSE investigation revealed it was custom and practice to use the axle lathe to clean axles in this way, but no risk assessment had ever been carried out, and none of the processes in place had identified the lack of a guard on this chuck.
“This case,” Ms Taylor declared, “yet again demonstrates the crucial importance of employers carrying out suitable and sufficient assessment of risks to their employees in the course of their daily work, taking the steps necessary to identify such risks, and thereafter ensuring that safe systems of work are in place and dangerous machinery parts are properly guarded.
“Railcare failed in each of these respects in relation to the axle lathe.”
For breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, Railcare Limited was fined £133,00, a sum reduced from £200,00 as a consequence of the company having pleaded guilty.
