A Kent aggregate company has been ordered to pay more than £180,000 in fines and costs after a worker was killed by dangerous lifting equipment on a tipper lorry.

Brian Peek, 57, from Ashford, sustained fatal injuries whilst unloading bags of hardcore and aggregate for Moores Turf & Top Soil Limited at a domestic address in Wittersham on 20 November 2006.

The lorry was fitted with a small crane and clam shell bucket, which he used to grab the bags and lower them to the ground. As Mr Peek unloaded the final bag, he leant over the back of the lorry and the crane slew around, trapping his neck between the bucket and the back of the lorry's tipping body. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

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Canterbury Crown Court heard that an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the equipment supplied to Mr Peek was in a poor state of repair and that the system of work employed to unload bulk bags of aggregate and hardcore was unsafe.

The incident could have been prevented had more suitable equipment been provided for the unloading task, such as a flatbed lorry and forklift truck. Moores had such equipment available for use, but chose to send the crane-mounted tipper instead.

Moores Turf & Top Soil Limited, of Callington Court Farm, Romney Marsh, was fined a total of £85,000 and ordered to pay a further £97,791 in costs after pleading guilty to breaching Sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

(CD/JP)