UK Coal Mining Ltd has been ordered to pay £300,000 in fines and costs after an employee was killed by falling pipes at Thoresby Colliery in Nottinghamshire.

Experienced locomotive driver John Harbron, 47, of Wellow, was working underground with colleagues when the fatal incident occurred on 24 July 2009.

He was preparing to unload a pack of 40 steel pipes from a rail-borne car, but when he cut plastic bands securing them in place they rolled sideways, fell off the car and landed on top of him.

Each pipe was nearly 13 feet long and weighed more than 11 stone. The whole pack weighed nearly three tonnes and fell in a relatively confined space where it was difficult to remove them swiftly.

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Mr Harbron, who was married with two daughters and two grandchildren, suffered multiple injuries and died at the scene despite his colleagues’ efforts to release him.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the pipe packs could not sit evenly on the type of car being used and could become unstable on tilted track.

Nottingham Crown Court was told tthe floor profile of an underground roadway can change quickly, sometimes within days, meaning the tilt of the track can vary from place to place and from time to time.

The court also heard there had been at least four written reports by locomotive drivers of pipe packs becoming unstable while being made ready for manual unloading some 18 months before Mr Harbron was killed. However, managers failed to read all the reports or act on drivers’ concerns.

UK Coal Mining Ltd, of Harworth Park, Blyth Road, Harworth, Doncaster, was fined a total of £125,000 and ordered to pay £175,000 in costs after pleading guilty to breaching Sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

(CD/H)