The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is warning employers not to ignore basic safety precautions following the death of a lorry driver at a depot in East London.

John Peter Wootten, formerly trading as AEP Aggregates, has been fined £4,000 and costs of £750 after pleading guilty to breaching Sections 3(1)(a) and 10(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. The prosecution follows HSE's investigation into a fatal incident in which a driver in Mr Wootten’s employment, Joseph Caruana, was fatally injured by a trailer.

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On 19 December 2001, Mr Caruana was unloading shingle at the RMC Readymix Ltd depot in Tower Hamlets. He reversed the articulated lorry up a concrete ramp into the unloading bay and activated the tipping mechanism. He engaged the tractor handbrake but not the trailer parking brake, and as he failed to release the tailgate of the trailer the shingle load built up at the rear of it.

The weight caused the vehicle to skid down the ramp. When Mr Caruana noticed this he ran and jumped into the cab of his vehicle, but he did not have time to shut the door. The vehicle jack-knifed, throwing him from the cab and under the advancing wheels of the trailer and he died of multiple injuries at the scene.

Charles Linfoot, HSE Inspector said: "Hauliers need to make sure they have safe systems of work, which include risk assessments adequate training and supervision of all workers. These actions are simple and could have saved the life of Mr Caruana. It is appalling that Mr Wootten ignored basic safety precautions and it is completely unacceptable that a man was killed in these circumstances."

(CD/JM)