Prosecution Details

Being a person who supplied plant, namely a steel trench shoring box, for use at a workplace, failed to ensure, so far as was practicable, that the design and construction of the plant was such that persons who properly used the plant were not, in doing so, exposed to a hazard.

A steel trench box which weighed approximately 4.5 tonnes was being lifted off a truck that had delivered the box from Ground Support Systems to the excavation site. The box was lifted clear off the rear tray of the truck by a mobile crane and placed on the ground. It was then hoisted up again for the purpose of being placed in another position when the welds connecting the box cross-braced to the box sides broke causing it to collapse in sections on the ground.

The failures occurred in the region of the SG cast iron rocker bodies where mild steel welding electrodes were used to weld them to mild steel, grade 250 plates.

A guilty plea was entered.