North-East recycling firm fined more than £2m for 'truly staggering' health and safety failures that led to death of Hartlepool worker

Dean Atkinson, 35, a picking operative, was killed instantly when he was struck and crushed by an 18-tonne vehicle at Ward Recycling, in Windermere Road, Hartlepool, in January 2020.

The company, which has since gone into liquidation, was found guilty of corporate manslaughter and further health and safety breaches after a trial at Teesside Crown Court in December.

The court heard there were “wholesale failures” at the £7million Hartlepool facility including nobody being responsible for health and safety and no traffic management plan to keep pedestrians and heavy machinery away from each other.

Just a year before Mr Atkinson’s tragic death, the company was issued with a contravention notice by the Health and Safety Executive for similar failures at its Middlesbrough site before failing to act on assurances.

Mr Atkinson, who was engaged to be married, died after being hit by the shovel loader while crossing the floor of the main building where waste paper and card was sorted after going to the toilet.

Prosecutor Allan Compton said it was routine for workers to cross the busy floor describing it as a “free for all”.

He said: “At any time multiple vehicles with restricted views could be travelling in any direction.”

Mr Compton added: “Over the previous year there would have been thousands of potentially dangerous movements all of which ran the risk of serious injury or death.”

The company had a “chaotic and dysfunctional” management structure demonstrated by a lack of health and safety training, supervision or monitoring resulting in an over reliance on workers’ common sense.

Judge Paul Watson, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, said: “The absence of even the most basic precautions against this sort of accident is truly staggering.”

He added: “This was an accident waiting to happen.”

Judge Watson fined the company £2.15million while acknowledging it is unlikely ever to be paid due a lack of assets because of liquidation and any creditors having priority.

But he said it was important to serve as a deterrent to others and “make publicly clear that this sort of conduct and neglect cannot be tolerated”.