A firm has been fined £125,000 following the deaths of two men who were working on a crane jib.
WD Bennett`s Plant & Services Ltd was also ordered to pay costs of £264,299 after being found guilty at Chichester Crown Court in March of two health and safety breaches that led to the deaths of the two workers and injured a third.
The company had been charged alongside Eurolift (Tower Cranes) Limited which pleaded guilty to two health and safety breaches at the beginning of the trial.
The prosecution followed an incident on a construction site in Durrington, Worthing in 2005 where the two men who died, Steve Boatman and Gary Miles, were working.
A third man, severely injured in the incident, was working on the mast of the crane. He was instructed to begin de-torquing the crane’s mast bolts and should have done so one-by-one, and then re-tightened each bolt in turn.
However, he was not trained in that job and failed to re-tighten the bolts. This caused the crane to collapse as it was turned.
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector Peter Collingwood said: “The accident, in which two men lost their lives, was avoidable.”
