Prosecution Details

Being an employer failed, so far as was practicable, to provide and maintain a working environment in which its employees were not exposed to hazards and thereby contravened sections 19(1) and 19(6) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984.

The Accused operated a business transporting freight by truck in Welshpool.

The Accused's trucks are loaded by its employees filling encapsulated cargo containers with freight and then using a forklift to move the container onto the truck. In some instances smaller and lighter items of freight are stacked on top of the encapsulated containers before they are loaded onto the truck and in other instances the lighter freight is loaded on the trucks by a person employed by the Accused standing on a crate which is balanced on the tynes of a forklift which has been lifted into the air with him standing on it.

On 11 December 2003 an employee loaded light freight into the back of a truck by standing on a pallet that had been placed over the tynes of a forklift and lifted into the air whilst he stood on it.

The Accused pleaded guilty.