Southampton Container Terminals Limited has been fined £1m by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after an employee fell 36ft (11 metres) on to a concrete floor in 2022 and suffered “life-changing” injuries. Christopher Hooper, from Winchester, was 29 when he fell through an open hole in the driver’s cab of a straddle carrier at DP World Southampton’s terminal. The company pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and was fined £1m and ordered to pay £11,664.59 in costs at Southampton Magistrates’ Court.
At the time of the incident, Hooper was undertaking routine maintenance work and was unaware of an open hole created by contractors replacing a glass floor. The HSE investigation found the company failed to ensure there was a system of work that allowed the glass floor replacement to be carried out at the same time as the routine maintenance. It also found the company failed to ensure there was a risk assessment in place and failed to implement its own policy for the use of permits to work whilst working at height.
Mr Hooper, now 31, said the incident had left him feeling like a “puppet” with “no control over where I am going”. “It feels like my life is in a waiting room,” he said in his victim personal statement. “No one can tell me what I can do next and that is really impacting my day-to-day life as I don’t know what the rest of my life will look like.” HSE inspector Francesca Arnold said Mr Hooper was “lucky to be alive”. “His life has completely changed because of Southampton Container Terminals Limited’s failure to produce a suitable risk assessment and implement straightforward control measures,” she said.
The investigation also found that the company failed to implement a system of work that would have allowed the glass floor replacement to be carried out at the same time as routine maintenance which put employees at risk. The case serves as a reminder to all employers that they will be held accountable for their failure to manage and implement effective measures to ensure employee safety at work. The hazards of working at height are well known and documented, and employers must ensure control measures are in place to prevent life-changing injuries and fatalities
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