APC Overnight fined £120k after worker run over by forklift truck

The employee suffered serious injuries to both legs after he was hit by the truck at Alternative Parcel Company's huge base in Cannock on November 28, 2015.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the nationwide delivery company failed to ensure agency workers had been suitably inducted before being allowed to work in an area where forklift trucks were operating.

The investigation also found the company, which has another hub in Essington, had failed to explain the measures designed to keep pedestrians and forklift trucks separated to its workers.

According to HSE, there was no control of the keys for the forklift trucks on the day shift, where trucks were permitted inside the 'sortation hub' even though they were banned from the inside of the building on the night shift.

APC Overnight Ltd of Sortation Hub, Blakeney Way, Kingswood Lakeside, pleaded guilty, to breaching section 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was fined £120,000 and ordered to pay costs of £10,500 at Cannock Magistrates' Court.

Speaking after the case, HSE inspector Steve Shaw said: “Those in control of work have a responsibility to both devise safe methods of working and to provide the necessary information, instruction, and training to their workers in the safe system of working.

"Employers must ensure agency staff have a suitable and sufficient induction so that they can work safely and be safe.

“If a suitable safe system of work and induction process had been in place prior to this particular incident, the injuries sustained by the employee could have been prevented.”

An APC Overnight spokeswoman said: “We deeply regret that we did not prevent the injury to an employee at our hub in Cannock, and fully accept the court's decision.

“At APC Overnight, we set ourselves high safety standards and implement strong procedures to underpin these.

"We recognise that, on this occasion, we fell below these high standards.

"What we learned from this accident triggered immediate actions to improve our health and safety practices and we worked with the employee to reintegrate them into our workforce as soon as he was fully recovered."