Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has said that the top management of a company is not absolved of the responsibility for negligence of employee safety and that the company cannot be used as a shield to help higher-level officials escape liability in this regard.

This was clearly demonstrated in a case involving the death of an employee of a pet food company, wherein the operations director of the company was asked to pay a fine along with costs. Director Philip Thompson of Butcher’s Pet Care Ltd. was charged of breaching Regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. Northampton Crown Court asked the director to pay a fine of 10,000 pounds and costs of 4,000 pounds after he pleaded guilty to the charges.

The case relates to an accident involving an employee named John O’Connor, who was a worker at the Butcher’s Pet Care factory. O’Connor was trying to clear a blockage which had stopped a palletising machine when an accident occurred and he was killed. He had just removed the obstruction when the machine started running again, dragging him into its moving parts and crushing him to death.

The palletising machine is a fully automated and sensor-guided machine, which is used to collect cans from the conveyor belt and stack them on nearby pallets for dispatch. The machine that killed O’Connor should have ideally been enclosed completely, and its entry should have been barred by means of an interlocking system.

However, it was found that there was a gap in the machine’s enclosure, through which employees often entered the machine. In fact, investigations revealed that this gap in the fencing created by the stair rails had been there for almost two years.

HSE Principal Inspector for Northamptonshire Neil Craig said that any worker could have been killed in a similar accident, and that the company had exposed its employees to high risk by neglecting the fencing of the machine. Craig added that the accident was foreseeable and could have been avoided if Thompson had performed his duties diligently.

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