Southampton: Company fined £1m over worker’s 11-metre fall

A logistics company has been fined £1m after an employee fell 36ft (11 metres) on to a concrete floor.

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 on 20 September 2022.

He suffered “life-changing” injuries including fractures to his skull, back and pelvis.

Inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found Southampton Container Terminals Limited failed to ensure there was a safe system of work at its Western Avenue site.

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.

Mr Hooper started working for Southampton Container Terminals Limited, trading as DP World Southampton, when he was 17.

At the time of the incident, he was undertaking routine maintenance work and was unaware of an open hole created by contractors replacing a glass floor.

The HSE investigation found Southampton Container Terminals Limited did not 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 hazards of working at height are well known and documented and this prosecution should now remind employers that a failure to manage and implement effective measures can have serious consequences and they will be held accountable for this failure.”

A spokesperson for DP World Southampton said safety was their “absolute priority” and acknowledged they had fallen “short of meeting our high safety standards”.

“Our commitment to safety is evidenced by our track record and in particular the consistent enhancement in our Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) over the last 15 years, the result of a substantial investment in safety training, awareness, and infrastructure,” they said.

“We have reviewed our operational systems and procedures and updated them as necessary to avoid any future incidents of a similar nature.”