EDF and contractor fined after serious fall
EDF Energy Nuclear Generation Ltd and Doosan Babcock Ltd have been fined £200,000 and £150,000 respectively after an employee fell through a skylight at Hinkley Point B power station and suffered ‘life-changing injuries’
The companies were also ordered to each pay half of the prosecution costs of £36,353.84 at a hearing at Taunton Crown Court.
The firms were prosecuted by the Office for Nuclear Regulation for offences under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 3(1), (in relation to EDF Energy), and the Work at Height Regulations 2005, Regulation 4(1), (for Doosan Babcock).
Both companies had previously pleaded guilty to the charges following the 2017 incident, where the Doosan Babcock Ltd employee sustained serious injuries after falling 1.6 meters through a skylight onto a cabinet, before falling a further two metres to the floor. He suffered three cracked vertebrae.
Donald Urquhart, ONR’s Deputy Chief Inspector and Director of Operating Facilities regulation, said:
“The level of financial penalty in this case is not a matter on which ONR has a view. As an independent regulator, what matters to me is the safety of workers and the public on and around nuclear licensed sites, and this prosecution shows we will take robust regulatory action where necessary to ensure that those that we regulate secure and maintain compliance with the law.
“In addition to these legal proceedings, we issued enforceable improvement notices to both EDF and Doosan Babcock, requiring them to put in place appropriate safety measures to ensure that such risks are properly controlled in the future. It is extremely important that lessons are learnt from incidents such as this, and I am pleased to note that both companies have since complied with these notices and have delivered necessary improvements to ensure that such risks are properly controlled.”