THE PIRELLI tyre firm and two other companies have been fined over a health and safety breach at the Carlisle site which left a forklift truck inspector seriously injured. 

The incident that triggered the Health & Safety Executive prosecution of the three firms involved the victim suffering multiple injuries after two skips fell on top of him, pinning him to the ground.

The improvised waste tyre compression system which led to the accident was "inherently unsafe", Carlisle Crown Court heard.  

At an earlier hearing, Pirelli Tyres Ltd and International Rubber and Tyres Recycling Ltd (IRTR) admitted failings linked to the incident at the Dalston Road site on November 14, 2019.

The firms admitted two health and safety charges. One charge relates to being an employer which failed to ensure people not in its employment were not exposed to health and safety risks both on and before November 14, 2019.

The second charge involves them sharing a workplace with other companies, and failing to work together to ensure that all people working on the site were doing what they should be doing; and that all proper work practices were being followed.

A third company — Tyneside-based DCS Multiserve Ltd — pleaded guilty to failing to co-operate and co-ordinate with other employers at the site, including Pirelli and IRTR.

Prosecutor Mark Monaghan said the accident involved a method of stacking waste tyres – known as greencovers – before they were loaded on to a truck for removal.

The waste tyres were brought out of the factory to a yard by an employee of DCS, which had been awarded the materials management contract for the Dalston Road site.

The tyres were then put into a “compacting machine” by an IRTR worker before the waste was stacked in a metal frame. Workers had devised a system of then further compacting the tyres by using a forklift truck to place two industrial skips on top of the tyres.

The skips were partially filled with metal waste.

This method was used for six or seven years so that the tyres stuck together and so were easier to load into a wagon, said Mr Monaghan.

Workers said the forklift truck would be parked, holding the skips in place, while the driver did other jobs and this is what happened on the day of the accident.

The prosecutor said: “It is quite clear from the evidence that Pirelli knew that this was something that was regularly done to squash the greencovers…

“What is also very clear is that nobody ever carried out a risk assessment in relation to the squashing of the greencovers using skips and there was never a safe operating procedure produced to deal with that job.

“The prosecution suggests that the reason for this was that this was a process that had developed in order to make [the job of the workers involved] easier, but it was not written down anywhere as being a particular person's job.”

The inspector was due at the site to carry out a mandatory examination of the forklift truck involved.

He found it parked against the metal frame filled with waste tyres with the two skips placed on top of the tyres. The inspector had never before seen the forklift truck in this position.

He reversed it away, and walked around it and as he did so the skips fell. The top skip struck his back before pinning his right leg to the ground. The bottom skip also struck the inspector, landing on his left leg, trapping him.

Workers released him by lifting the skips.

The man suffered multiple fractures to his back, a break of his left femur, nerve compression to his left leg, causing a complete lack of feeling and control of the left foot, and compression damage to his right leg.

He spent five weeks in hospital.

The victim still suffers pain and needs painkillers and anti-depressants. The injuries affected him in multiple ways, and his employment has also been affected.

Mr Monaghan added: “The failure on the part of the three defendants to co-ordinate their approach to risk management meant no one duty holder took responsibility for the dangerous work activity.

“As a result, there was a failure to risk assess the task and the opportunity to eliminate or control the risk was missed.”

Richard Matthews KC, for Pirelli, said the firm’s head of health and safety and its legal director were in court and the incident represented their “nightmare.”

“Everybody at Pirelli recognises and regrets the human cost,” he said.

The company had good systems in place but in this case they were not implemented. The firm had now implemented "remedial measures" and intended to “learn every possible lesson from this,” said Mr Matthews.

Tom Gent, for IRTR , said the firm apologised to the victim. “Very significant lessons have been learned in relation to health and safety,” he said.

Had the firm’s managers been aware of how the tyres were being compressed it would have been properly risk assessed, added the barrister.

Lucy Wright, for DCS, said stacking the greencovers was not the responsibility of the firm, but extensive steps had been taken since the accident to remove defects from working systems.

The incident was taken seriously by shareholders and seriously bitterly regretted and recognised that only the highest standards of health and safety were acceptable.

Recorder Julian Shaw noted that the victim had been affected both physically and psychologically. He fined Pirelli £280,000, with costs of £4,703. IRTR were fined £9,000, with costs of £4,566; and DCS were fined £2,000, with costs of £15,000.

All three firms must also pay a £181 victim surcharge.