Prosecution Details

Being an employee failed to take reasonable care to ensure his own health and safety at work by being elevated on the tynes of a forklift truck; contrary to sections 20(1)(a) and 20(4) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984.

The defendant is employed by a transport company as a commercial vehicle driver.

On 14 July 2003 the defendant stood on a pallet that was raised approximately 5 feet off the ground by a Yale forklift registration number WU 259. The defendant had instructed a 15-year-old boy who was on work experience with the transport company to lift the defendant up so that he could clean the roof of a prime mover that the defendant had been driving.

The defendant had completed the competency requirements of the National Guidelines for Occupational Health and Safety Competency Standards for the Operation of Load Shifting Equipment and ought to have well known that it was not safe to raise a person on a pallet using a forklift in this way.

The defendant pleaded guilty.

Convicted