03 November 2021
Ferryspeed (CI) Limited was fined £55,000 and ordered to pay costs of £5,000 by the Royal Court on 29 October 2021, after pleading guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work (Jersey) Law 1989 following the collapse of a tail lift on one of their vehicles.
The prosecution resulted from an incident that occurred on 29 March 2021. A Ferryspeed driver was delivering cages of groceries to a St Saviour supermarket using a refrigerated box body trailer which was fitted with a tail lift at the rear. He had pulled four loaded cages weighing a total of almost 1.3 metric tonnes onto the tail lift, which was within the 1.5 tonnes maximum safe load of the lift. As the driver stood on the vehicle lift, next to the cages, and lowered the lift, the left-hand runner of the tail lift snapped, and that side of the lift fell to the floor.
The opposite side of the lift remained raised and attached to the vehicle causing the four cages to topple over onto the driver.
Fortunately, the fall of the cages was arrested by a pedestrian barrier that was situated at the edge of the loading bay and although the driver was trapped by his leg, he was not crushed. He was pulled clear by the supermarket staff who responded very quickly, sustaining injuries to his leg and arm that kept him off work for five weeks.
Investigation by the Health and Safety Inspectorate identified that the trailer in question had been operated by Ferryspeed for a period approaching ten years. No evidence could be found of the tail lift having been thoroughly examined by a competent person during this time.
As an item of lifting equipment that is subject to conditions of deterioration and used to lift people as well as goods, a vehicle tail lift should be examined and tested by a competent person every six months. In fact, Ferryspeed had been reminded of this obligation, in writing by the Health and Safety Inspectorate, in a letter dated October 2019.
There were three other, identical refrigerated trailers in the Ferryspeed fleet fitted with tail lifts. The tail lift on these trailers had all been thoroughly examined by a commercial vehicle specialist in the UK over the previous year. As a result of the thorough examination, all three of these trailers had required replacement of the runners that support the tail lift due to wear and corrosion. Despite these warnings Ferryspeed continued to operate the trailer that had not been examined until it failed, injuring the operator. The Lieutenant Bailiff in sentencing remarked that it was a ‘miracle’ that the driver was not more seriously injured or even killed.
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