Company found guilty after worker's fatal fall
Evening Gazette/Teesside LiveA company has been found guilty of three health and safety offences after one of its employees died at work.
Warehouse supervisor Paul Hutchinson, 60, was working for the Logistics company Bertschi at its site at South Bank in Middlesbrough on 4 November 2021, when he fell approximately 5ft (1.5m) and hit his head.
Bertschi had denied three offences of failing to do its duty under health and safety laws, one of ensuring employees' health and safety and two relating to employees working at height.
But after a two-week trial at Teesside Crown Court, a jury unanimously convicted the firm of all counts.
The court heard how Hutchinson fell from a mobile loading ramp where he was trying to help a colleague who was loading plastic bales using a fork lift truck, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
GoogleProsecuting for the Health and Safety Executive, James Puzey said Bertschi should have ensured the ramp had handrails and the company could have included pedestrians using it in its risk assessments and procedures.
But the defence said it was a "tragic, unexpected and unforeseen event", with Bertschi maintaining it took all reasonable and practical steps to reduce the risk to employees, including giving instructions to walk up the middle of the ramp.
But the prosecution said there was "no specific plan for this job", or to deal with unstable loads saying warehouse supervisor Hutchinson was "just trying to get the job done".
Following the verdicts Judge Francis Laird KC, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, thanked the jurors and said the case "had a very human element to it, bearing in mind the very tragic loss of Mr Peter Hutchinson's life".
Sentencing was adjourned until 17 July.
