HSE Dual Prosecution

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 is a very versatile piece of legislation.

The intention of the act is to improve safety arrangements and reduce accidents in the workplace. The act places specific duties on many different categories of people, including designers, manufacturers, employers and employees.

The aim is that everyone at work is captured by the legislation and has responsibility for their acts and omissions. The HSE launched a new version of the law poster in April 2009, the content of the poster has been redesigned and reworded to help employers and workers gain a better understanding of the act.

The act applies to all (but a select few) of workplaces throughout UK. Section 2 is the most commonly used piece of legislation; it covers the general duties of employers with regards to safety and health of employees.

The Section can be applied to any industry and will be referred to in the majority of cases presented before a judge.

Section 3 is another commonly used part of the act and covers the general duties placed on employers and the self-employed to persons other than their employees.

Two specific sections from the act that are seldom known of or understood by those they apply to are Sections 7 and 8.

• Section 7 – States that: it shall be the duty of every employee while at work to take reasonable care of themselves and for the safety of other persons who may be effected by their acts and omissions.
  
  It goes on to say, the employee must cooperate with their employer so far as is necessary to enable the employer to fulfil any statutory duty or requirement placed on him.
   
• Section 8 -  States that no person shall intentionally or recklessly interfere with or misuse anything in the interests of health, safety and welfare.

These parts of the act place very clear and specific duties on employees; it is worthwhile reminding workers of their responsibilities and duties at work.

Very rarely are employers prosecuted along with employees for an incident where duties have been breached. However cases do occur, and to help you, the reader understand such circumstances please read on…

Thames Valley Police were utilising the skills of a fire arms officer to familiarise new control room staff with hand guns. Unfortunately during this exercise a member of the group was shot. Part of the routine demonstration was to load a revolver with blank ammunition and then fire the gun to help explain how the revolver action operates.

Dummy ammunition was meant to be used for the demonstration; this was stored in a container kept in the armoury. Unknown to the police officers providing the training live ammunition was mixed amongst the dummy rounds. The officers also failed to check the ammunition selected for use as part of the demo. An absence of simple and reliable control measures attributed to this series of events which lead to the unfortunate incident.

The officer loaded the gun and accidentally shot one of the new control room staff in the stomach. The man sustained injuries that were life threatening and remained in intensive care for 10 days. He was released from hospital after 22 days but has not returned to work due to the severity of injuries.

A risk assessment was previously prepared for activities involving fire arms and ammunition but the HSE identified that this was inadequate as it did not consider the potential for mixing live and blank ammunition.

When preparing a risk assessment you should always utilise the experience of employees likely to be involved with an activity on a regular basis, these are the people who should be most knowledgeable of the hazards. It is important that all aspects of a task are considered. There are many different principles for hazard identification, your health and safety advisor will be happy to explain these and work through some examples with you.

Control measures are an integral component of the risk assessment process. The control measures in this case the HSE and judge confirmed where inadequate. Improvements need not cost a fortune to be effective. In this instance the provision and marking of two separate containers clearly identifying the contents of each would have helped prevent the incident. This along with simple training for fire arms officers would have probably helped to avoid this incident altogether.

Often risk assessments are treated as an obligation that must be fulfilled and an obstacle to progress with other concerns at work. By involving staff with the completion of the assessments it helps them appreciate the benefits of the process and also makes them feel valued.

It is important that risk assessments are current and that the content is understood by all people the hazard is likely to affect. What use is an assessment that has not been referred to by anyone for many years and what credibility will it attract by a court if a tragedy was to occur in your workplace.

To help ensure your assessments are suitable and sufficient your local health and safety advisor can conduct a review during a visit. To arrange a visit please contact us now on: 0845 073 0260.

At a hearing at Southwark Crown Court on 24 September 2009, Thames Valley Police pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act and was fined £40,000 and also ordered to pay costs of £25,000.

The Police Constable pleaded guilty to breaching Section 7 of the Health and Safety at Work Act, he was fined £8,000 with £5,000 in costs