HSE prosecutions: when the warning was already there

Three recent HSE prosecutions, £580,000 in company fines between them, and one thing in common. In every case the warning already existed. It was written into a legal notice, into the company's own procedures, or it was in plain sight on the yard every day. What was missing was anyone checking that what is written down is what actually happens on site.

• £20,000. A timber company ignored three improvement notices. Its managing director was fined separately and disqualified from acting as a director for five years.
• £400,000. A waste and recycling company had let walking close to moving vehicles become custom and practice. A site operative was struck by a mobile shredder.
• £160,000. An animal feed manufacturer had risk assessments, management walkarounds and audits. None of them spotted a hole cut into a running conveyor years earlier.

None of these were sophisticated failures. They were ordinary arrangements that nobody tested against reality, in businesses that in two of the three cases believed they had the right systems in place.

£20,000 and a five-year disqualification for ignoring improvement notices

A company supplying timber and manufacturing gates, fencing panels and garden furniture was fined £20,000 with £5,000 costs at Crown Court in August, after failing to act on three improvement notices.

Inspectors had found employees were not protected from the health risks of wood dust or the safety risks of rider-operated lift trucks. Staff had not been trained to operate lift trucks, had not been face fit tested for their respiratory protection, and were not under health surveillance. The notices told the company what to put right. It did not.

The consequences reached the managing director personally. He was fined £5,000 with £2,500 costs on his own count of contravening a notice, and the court granted an HSE application to disqualify him from acting as a company director for five years.

Under section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, directors and other officers can be prosecuted in their own right where an offence by the company is committed with their consent or connivance, or is attributable to their neglect. Depending on the circumstances that can mean an unlimited fine, imprisonment, or disqualification under the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986.

The lesson. An improvement notice is the final warning, not the punishment. By the time one is served, the regulator has already decided what needs to change and written it down for you. Treating it as paperwork to be filed is what turns a manageable problem into a personal one.

£400,000 after walking near moving vehicles became custom and practice

A waste and recycling company was fined £400,000 with £10,259 costs after a site operative was struck by a mobile shredder while accessing the tipping yard, and trapped between a gate post and the machine. She suffered life-threatening injuries and has been left with life-changing consequences.

HSE found the company had not managed the movement of pedestrians and vehicles at the site, and had allowed it to become custom and practice for people to walk close to moving vehicles, including the shredder, lorries and forklift trucks.

That phrase is the important one. Nobody decided that people should walk near moving plant. It became normal gradually, and once it was normal it stopped being visible. A risk assessment written at a desk will not catch a practice like that, because the practice is not in anyone's procedure. It only shows up if somebody stands in the yard and watches what people and vehicles actually do.

The lesson. Traffic management controls on paper are the starting point, not the answer. Ask what has quietly become routine on your site that nobody would write down if asked to describe how the work is done.

£160,000 for a conveyor modification that audits kept missing

An animal feed manufacturer was fined £160,000 with £4,728 costs after a maintenance engineer working a night shift alone reached through a hole in a running conveyor to clear material, and his arm was pulled in.

There was no guard on the conveyor and no emergency stop nearby. He waved repeatedly at a CCTV camera and nobody came. After 40 seconds he managed to free his arm himself. He suffered a fracture and extensive degloving injuries to his forearm and hand.

The hole had been cut into the conveyor casing years earlier so that blockages could be cleared while the machine kept running. A second conveyor had a similar unauthorised opening.

The company was not operating without a system. Its own safe systems of work required machinery to be guarded and isolated before maintenance. HSE found that despite routine inspections, management walkarounds and audits, the dangerous modifications had not been identified or rectified. The inspector's conclusion was that the company had risk assessments and safe systems of work, but they were not followed or enforced.

The lesson. An audit that checks whether a document exists will pass a site like this every time. Lone working raises the stakes further: a modification that is merely dangerous on a busy shift becomes life-threatening at two in the morning with nobody watching.

What these three have in common

In all three cases the information needed to prevent the incident was already available to the business. A notice had been served, a procedure had been written, or the hazard was visible daily to everyone who worked there.

Three questions worth putting to your own sites this month. When an enforcement notice or an audit action lands, who confirms it was actually closed out, rather than assigned? When did somebody last watch how people and vehicles move on your yard, instead of reading the traffic plan? And when maintenance happens out of hours and alone, what would happen in the first sixty seconds if it went wrong?

If you would like help answering any of those, speak to your Opus consultant on 0330 043 4015 or email hello@opus-safety.co.uk.

Sources

• HSE, Cornwall sawmill and company director fined after failing to act on health and safety notices, 21 August 2026
• HSE, Waste and recycling company fined £400,000 after woman crushed, 18 August 2026
• HSE, Manufacturer fined after worker suffers life-changing injuries in conveyor incident, 9 September 2026