Personal car accident and work injury compensation claim at Injuries Direct

A £30,000 fine was imposed from Castle Bromwich, Birmingham the firm Dura Automotive Body and Glass Systems UK

The car components firm was fined after a manufacturing robot struck Michael Brewer a worker at the company, causing damage to his voice box and nearly paralysing him down one side of his body.

Mr. Brewer was injured while attempting to fix a fully-automated industrial robot in May 2008.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) launched an investigation and discovered that the firm had a system of accessing the robot by putting it on manual before entry rather on the full automatic cycle.

Health and Safety Executive inspectors also found that staff would watch the operating cycle from inside the guarded zone.

They concluded that company had failed to carry out an adequate risk assessment to the risks posed to maintenance staff by operating the industrial robots when staff are within the guarded area.

The company was also ordered to pay costs of £20,000 by the Crown Court in Birmingham.

Edward Fry an inspector at HSE said: “This is a prime example of a company failing to address the risks relating to maintenance work.”

It possible that Mr. Brewer will be pursuing a claim for compensation.

A spokes person for Ashley Ainsworth one of the UK leading companies based  in Cheshire, that deals with accident at work compensation said “Employers should make more effort in providing risk assessments to protect their work force”

The University of Warwick has been fined £3000 after a man suffered severe arm injuries in an accident at work.

Agency worker Gareth Keal was working at the institution’s horticultural research site in October 2008. He was using a bulb harvesting machine that had been mounted on a tractor when his hand became trapped between the rollers inside it.

His arm was pulled into the device up to his shoulder, leaving him with painful injuries including soft-tissue, muscle, tendon and ligament damage.

It was found that the machine had failed to meet certain health and safety regulations. It had been modified from a potato harvester before being supplied to Mr Keal’s contactors Standen Engineering Ltd.

The University pleaded guilty to Regulation 11 (1a) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 at a hearing at Boston Magistrates’ Court. Along with their £3000 fine, they were also ordered to pay just over £2000 in court costs.

Standen Engineering Ltd were also fined a total of £2500 after admitted their failure to provide safe machinery to a worker.

A company has been fined by the Health and Safety Executive following the death of an employee in the workplace.

Peter Clarke, 57, suffered fatal injuries when his head was crushed between concrete blocks and a metal platform at the site of Hanson Building Products Ltd in April 2008.

Mr Clarke had the responsibility of quality checking concrete blocks that were being moved on a conveyor from a kiln to a packaging area.

The conveyor belt could be controlled by an operator, and moved to the desired position in order to sort out the sizes of concrete blocks before they were packaged.

Mr Clarke, who had only been working for the company for two weeks, was standing next to the conveyor when the unaware operator moved it, meaning he was crushed and subsequently killed.

An investigation carried out after the incident found that the company’s risk assessments had only found a danger to workers trapping their fingers.

A HSE spokesperson said: “There were no safe systems of work for removing the blocks and the company failed to supervise Mr Clarke adequately. The area where he was working was well known as a danger zone by other workers, but he had been on site for less that two weeks and nobody had told him about the risks.”

The organisation was ordered to pay £280,000, plus costs of £29,204 during a hearing at Warwick Crown Court last week. They admitted to breaches of Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

A Tory peer has pledged to remove the health and safety rules that stop emergency service workers performing their duties.

Lord Young told The Times that “children were dying because of health and safety”, and that workers from the emergency services, such as the police and firemen, were “paid for doing a job that involves risk”.

The news comes after the Conservative party announced plans to review the growing ‘compensation culture’ in the UK. Their findings are due to be published this summer.

In the article, Lord Young said: “Technically speaking the firemen could say they wouldn’t go into a fire because it was too dangerous. We’ve just got to get sense back into the system.”

He also argued that the system was ‘wrong’ if a Ministry of Defence secretary could be awarded more in compensation for alleged sexual discrimination than a soldier injured whilst serving in Afghanistan.

Critics say the party are exaggerating the issue and that their ideas were based on myth, including teachers forcing pupils to wear goggles to play conkers, and trainee hairdressers being banned from using scissors.

Muiris Lyons, the president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, said: “Where people are needlessly injured, through others’ fault, they should be able to obtain access to justice.”

A woman has been awarded £35,000 personal injury compensation after she was injured by a faulty fairground ride.

Jessica Oseland, 28, from Bilston near Wolverhampton, was thrown 10 metres through the air when the pod that she was sat in on the Orbiter ride became loose from the rest of the machine.

Miss Oseland, who has been left a tetraplegic following the incident in 2006, could yet receive further compensation payouts of up to £5million if her additional civil claims are successful.

The fairground operator, Thomas Denzil Jones, was fined £15,000 for failing to ensure that the fairground equipment was maintained in good working condition. He was also ordered to pay £5,000 court costs.

Fairground Inspection Services, based in Leicestershire, were ordered to pay Ms Oseland £35,000 compensation after it was ruled that they had failed to ensure passengers and passers by were protected from the risk of injury or death.

It was also found that the ride hadn’t even reached maximum speed, suggesting that the consequences of the accident could have been far worse.

An inspector for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) said: “If the ride had been at full speed, we could have been looking at a fatal incident, with possible injuries to other passengers on the ride as well as onlookers.”

An assessment of the ride’s condition later showed that 13 of the 18 pods had cracks in the welds holding them onto the machine, which dated back to as later as 1979.

New Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to look into the theory of a growing ‘compensation culture’ in Britain throughout the next week.

He has appointed a former minister to Margaret Thatcher, Lord Young of Graffham, to carry out an audit into the system, which could see changes introduced as early as this summer.

Its thought he will look into health and safety laws, with a particular focus on the Health and Safety at Work Act, which they suggest is forcing business to operate with red tape.

Lord Young said: “Health and safety regulation is essential in many industries but many have been applied too generally and have become an unnecessary burden on firms, but also community organisations and public services. I hope my review will reintroduce an element of common sense and focus the regulation where it is most needed.”

Mr Cameron has however been accused of exaggerating the issue, including making out that all teachers made pupils wear goggles before playing conkers, despite this happening in just one case across the country.

Workers Unions are expected to act with resistance to any proposed changes in order to protect their members in the workplace.

A company from Greater Manchester has been fined after an employee suffered a nasty workplace accident.

ADA Machining Services, based in Ashton-under-Lyne, were ordered to pay £26,000 for breaches of health and safety regulations.

The worker, who asked to remain anonymous, was seriously injured when he became trapped in a metal shaping machine in January 2008.

He lost a finger, suffered 12 broken ribs and cracked his breast bone. He also sustained friction burns to the left side of his body.

It was found that the company had not installed an appropriate safety guard on the machine to protect employees from the dangerous moving parts inside it.

The employee has been unable to return to work since the accident two-and-a-half years ago.

A HSE inspector said: “It’s vital that companies take action to protect employees who are required to operate potentially dangerous machinery. Otherwise workers will continue to be injured in the future.”

Three firms have been found guilty of failing to protect staff and members of the public from an explosion at a Hertfordshire oil depot.

The incident at the Buncefield plant in 2005 is believed to be the largest explosion in peacetime Europe. It could be heard as far as 125 miles away, and measured 2.4 on the Richter scale.

43 people were injured in the blast, which came after a vapour cloud caused by 250,000 litres of leaking petrol ignited. 2000 people were also evacuated from their homes.

TAV Engineering, Motherwell Control Systems 2003, and Hertfordshire Oil Storage, were all found guilty of Health and Safety breaches in court last week. All now face paying hefty fines.

It’s thought that had the explosion not happened on a Sunday morning, the number of casualties may have been far higher, whilst the severity of them far more severe.

Hertfordshire Oil Storage also pleaded guilty to environmental damage caused, including polluting waters and is likely to be fined accordingly.

A statement released by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) read: “When the largest fire in peacetime Europe tore through the Buncefield site on that Sunday morning in December 2005, these companies had failed to protect workers, members of the public and the environment.

“The scale of the explosion and fire at Buncefield was immense and it was miraculous that nobody died.”

A Cornwall-based company has been fined after failing to carry out a check for dangerous asbestos fibres at one of their demolition sites.

Property developers Norwegian Homes Ltd were ordered to pay £4,500 after admitting that they had not undertaken a proper survey into the presence of asbestos at the Cellar Cover Hotel in Perranporth.

The company had been contracted to demolish in the building in July 2006, in order to convert it into a number of guesthouses and holiday apartments.

During an inspection of the site, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found asbestos insulation boards underneath a caravan, in polythene sacks, as well as in the ashes of a bonfire.

A court later heard how the company had provided no protection for staff working on the site, and there were no measures in place to properly remove the dangerous material.

A HSE representative said: “This incident was entirely preventable and the clean-up costs far outstripped the costs of a survey and safe removal of the asbestos material.”

A Leeds-based company has been fined £250,000 after a man was crushed to death in an accident at work.

Warehouse manager Alan Fletcher died when he tried to stop a 1.8 tonne case of glass from toppling as it was being unloaded at the warehouse of Roadways Container Logistics.

Leeds Crown Court heard how he had ‘instinctively’ run over to try and prevent the case from falling, but was crushed to death under its intense weight.

The company had no experience in handling such heavy loads, usually dealing with 25kg cardboard boxes of clothing. The glass case had fallen because it had not been properly secured, and employees had not been given appropriate training for the task ahead. No risk assessment or formal planning had been carried out.

Mr Fletcher’s colleague, Peter Bedford, also suffered serious injuries after the incident. He is now permanently disabled and has been left with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Roadways Container Logistics pleaded guilty to Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and face paying the hefty fine and additional legal costs.