Court fines Scottish contractor for worker fatality

Scottish demolition contractor Whiteinch Demolition has been fined £15,000 (US$24,656) at Glasgow Sherriff Court after the company admitted breaching health and safety laws, leading to the death of one of its employees. Sixty-eight year old Bernard McCarroll was killed by a falling weight in May 2008 while he was disassembling an excavator at the company's Bishopbriggs yard north of Glasgow.

The court heard that the company failed to supply a safe procedure for the work or carry out a risk assessment, and also failed to provide sufficient information and instruction concerning the assembly of the machine, leaving Mr McCarroll to decide for himself how to carry out the work.