Director Sentenced To 12 Months In Prison For Failing To Comply With HSE Enforcement Notices

Tahir Karim, a Director of Long Life Spares, a former car salvage company operating from Graddfa Industrial Estate, Caerphilly, entered guilty pleas to four offences that contravened section 33 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

At a hearing at Newport Crown Court in November 2021, the judge gave the statutory credit attributable to a guilty plea. The Director was also ordered to pay £11,194.05 prosecution costs and a £140 victim surcharge. The company is recorded as being dissolved on 28 May 2019.

Mr Karim had failed to comply with four HSE prohibition notices relating to structural safety issues within the Long Life Spares site and the use of unsafe forklift trucks. Two of the forklift trucks on which notices had been served were defective and the HSE found a bridge structure and stone retaining wall to be in extremely poor condition and at risk of collapse. All issues posed a risk of serious injury to employees, individuals using the site as a place of work and those visiting the site.

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) pursued an investigation after a report from a forklift examiner in November 2018 observed a Category A defect on a forklift truck. Between 2016 and 2018 the HSE served 15 enforcement notices at the premises. On reinspection the HSE found that there had been a failure to comply with four prohibition notices served. Further the Director, who was in control of activities and people working at the site between 2018 and 2021, was said by the HSE to have been "aware of the risks and directed workers to act in a way that contravened the prohibitions and risked their own safety".

The judge concluded that culpability was very high. Mr Karim flagrantly disregarded the law, put cost before safety and put employees and members of the public at risk, that risk lasting over a period of years.

Your employer must make sure that risks to workers and the public are continuously addressed for workplace transport, equipment and environs. There must be a visible and proactive health and safety regime that is ready for HSE inspection.