19/01/2011 - Worker crushed to death by glass
A retail display company's failure to ensure the safety of staff left an agency worker dead, crushed under a stack of glass while working at a shipping container in St Neots, Cambridgeshire.
Vitalijus Orlovas, 29, only started work for the firm, Arken PoP, that morning. He was unloading sheets of glass from Arken PoP's site in the town's Hawkesden Road when they fell on him. Mr Orlovas died at the scene from crush injuries.
Arken PoP, of Studlands Park Avenue, Newmarket, produces point-of-sale displays for retailers. Safety investigators prosecuted the firm for the accident, which took place in August 2008. Arken pleaded guilty to breaking section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 in an earlier hearing at Peterborough Crown Court, and was fined £80,000 plus £16,914 costs.
The firm did not have adequate arrangements in place to unload the glass safely when the Mr Orlovas was killed.
Inspector David Head said: "The tragic death of this young man should never have happened. Arken PoP did not carry out their legal duty to ensure the health and safety of people that were working for them, and the result was this horrific incident."
Copyright © Press Association 2010
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