The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has prosecuted sugar company Tate & Lyle following the death of an employee on one of its ships.

 
In March 2004, 53-year-old Keith Webb was unloading a cargo of raw sugar from a ship at Tate and Lyle’s sugar refinery at Factory Road in Silvertown, Newham, east London.

Mr Webb worked for Acclaim Logistics Ltd and was inside a bulldozer that fell from a crane being lowered into the ship’s hold. As the vehicle was being lowered, the lifting lug – which connects the lifting chain to the crane – snapped and the bulldozer fell, hitting the ship before falling into the water. Mr Webb died in the fall.

On Friday (09/10/09) at Southwark Crown Court, Tate and Lyle Industries Ltd of Sugar Key, Lower Thames Street, London EC3 pleaded guilty to breaching Sections 2(1) and 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The company was fined £270,000, with costs of £90,000.

The HSE investigation into the accident found that the company had failed to ‘provide and manage’ appropriate means of access to the ships being unloaded – and had also failed to manage and control staff and contractors working at the site.

After the hearing, HSE inspector John Crookes said that in failing to identify and address the areas of concern ‘before they led to the death of a worker’, Tate & Lyle’s performance ‘performance fell well below what could be reasonably expected of them’.

Mr Crookes called the incident ‘a terrible accident’ that had deprived Mr Webb’s family of a husband, father and grandfather.

His widow, Mrs Avril Webb, said:

‘Although Keith died five years ago, for me, it’s like yesterday. My husband was ripped from my life, from our family’s lives. There was no illness to prepare us for our loss. I’m still trying to fill the huge void left by his death, still trying to pick up the threads of a life that I can no longer enjoy. I am half of a whole person. I am no longer part of a couple.’

Mr Webb also leaves two children and two grandchildren, one of whom was born after his death.

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