The UK’s biggest retailer Tesco has been ordered to pay a £12,600 penalty after a reverse scissor lift collapsed while in use at one of its superstores.
This is the second time the retail giant has been prosecuted over a defective scissor lift and its sixth safety prosecution in less than 18 months.
Staff were using the lift at the supermarket in Ystrad Mynach near Caerphilly in South Wales when it buckled.
An Environmental Health Office and senior commercial safety officer from Caerphilly County Borough Council conducted an investigation and found Tesco had broken several safety rules.
Though the supermarket chain had a risk assessment for using scissor lifts, the company had not implemented it at the store.
Tesco had failed to maintain the lift and to have it thoroughly examined at six-monthly intervals as stipulated by the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER). In fact the lift had not been checked for over four and-a-half years.
At Abertillery Magistrates’ Court, Tesco admitted breaching Regulation 5(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations, by failing to implement its risk assessment.
The company also pleaded guilty under Regulation 9(3)(a)(i) of LOLER and Regulation 5(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations, for failing to conduct six-monthly lift examinations and not maintaining the lift in good working order. The court fined Tesco a total of £9600 with £3000 in costs.
Tesco was fined £20,000 last year after a defective scissor lift knocked a worker unconscious in August 2006.
It is worth reflecting here on the level of fines involved. Courts do not set fines based on any "ability to pay" rather on the severity of the offence, as they see it. The fines imposed could well have been exactly the same for a company a fraction the size of Tesco.
Consider the benefits of maintaining up to date service records of equipment, and risk assessments. A small amount of time doing this could save a lot more in the long term.