A Co Antrim waste management company has been fined £60,000 after an employee died at their landfill site in Mallusk - tragically under tonnes of rubbish.

BIFFA Waste Services Ltd. was fined at Belfast's Laganside Courts on Wednesday morning, after 23-year-old supervisor David Layland was killed in August 2008.

A police search uncovered the Newtownabbey man's body at the Co Antrim site the day after he went missing at work.

BIFFA was charged with failing to ensure health and safety of employees, to which the company pleaded guilty.

There was a "systemic failure at the heart of their system," Judge Burgess told the court.


However it was accepted that because Mr Layland's body was found 70 metres from where he was last seen, and after some time had passed, it was "extremely difficult, if not impossible" to determine exactly when and how he died.

The case followed an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI) into the circumstances surrounding the death and while it was indeed "not possible to establish how or when Mr Layland died", HSENI's investigation revealed a number of unsafe practices that had been allowed to go on around the time of his last sighting.

These included unsafe arrangements for the separation of pedestrians and vehicles at the site.

After the hearing Kevin Campbell, HSENI's an investigating inspector said: "Proper arrangements must always be in place where large vehicles operate in the vicinity of pedestrians.

"Where vehicles and pedestrians share a traffic route or work area, there must be strictly controlled arrangements to ensure adequate separation at all times.

"This applies to all workplaces and is vital in circumstances where large vehicles operate," he said.

(BMcC/GK)