Firm fined £326,000 after truck driver was fatally crushed at Earls Barton depot

Russell Homer died, aged 44, when he was crushed between a HGV tractor and another vehicle while he was working a nightshift at Nightfreight GB Ltd in Doddington Road, Earls Barton, on December 7, 2010 at about 6.20pm.

Representatives for the company appeared in Northampton Crown Court earlier today, charged with breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Nightfreight, which has depots around the country, pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the safety of employees and the general public.

The court heard that Mr Homer, a father-of-two from Overstone, was trying to couple a trailer to his tractor when the fatal incident happened.

When Mr Homer got out of the tractor to start the coupling, he left the engine running and the hand-brake off, the court heard.

Tim Green, prosecuting, said if there was an alarm to warn that the hand-brake was off then it would have been silenced when Mr Homer closed the tractor door.

The tractor was stopped from moving by its link to the trailer, but Mr Homer released the brake on the trailer to continue the coupling and once the trailer was connected to the tractor, its emergency brakes were released and the vehicle rolled down the slope at the depot.

The court heard the lorry hit Mr Homer and then continued to roll down a slope, travelling another 27 metres before crashing into a wall.

Mr Green said: “Given the slope at the site the company had to do more than train its drivers in best practice. It had to protect its drivers and others from potentially fatal human error, for example forgetting to apply a tractor brake.”

The court heard about two previous incidents where vehicles had ‘run away’ at the Earls Barton site, where the loading area stands at the top of a slope which leads down to a junction with a busy road.

Peter Smith, mitigating, said: “The company is genuinely sorry for its failure in this genuinely tragic incident. It had a profound effect on staff and management.”

Judge Rupert Mayo ordered Nightfreight to pay a £300,000 fine, court costs of £26,000 and a £15 victim surcharge.

He said: “The amount of any fine cannot place a value on the life of Russell Homer: It is a punishment pure and simple. I have read the victim impact statements and it is plain that he was an outstanding man.”

After the hearing Health and Safety Executive inspector Judith McNulty-Green said: “Mr Homer’s death was entirely preventable and his life has needlessly been lost. It happened because of a poor and dangerous practice that the company was aware of but did nothing to stop. Appropriate controls should also have been in place to ensure vehicles did not roll away.