Mushroom Factory Could Face Multiple Compensation Claims After Workers’ Lives Put At Risk

May 10, 2012 - PRLog -- A company prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for the dangerous conditions that workers were subjected to could face multiple compensation claims after lives were put in danger.

 

Suffolk Mushrooms Limited, situated on an industrial estate near Bury St Edmonds, Suffolk, could have subjected as many as 37 workers to the potentially lethal condition of carbon monoxide poisoning, after housing the aforementioned in a disused office block with a potentially unsafe gas boiler.

 

The HSE were alerted of the danger by St Edmundsbury Borough Council and launched an investigation which found that the heating in the living accommodation of the site, located on the Shepherd Grove Industrial Estate, was provided by a boiler fired using Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). Such boilers require a landlord’s gas safety certificate, but the boiler of Suffolk Mushrooms had no such certificate.

 

As a result the company were prosecuted by the HSE and could now face individual claims from each of the employees put at risk.

 

After the hearing, HSE Inspector John Claxton said:

"What we discovered at this farm was very disturbing. It is difficult to believe that workers can be exposed to such unnecessary risks.

 

"Suffolk Mushrooms invested more than £1.5m in refurbishing its factory and mushroom growing equipment, yet failed to spend even a few hundred pounds to keep its employees safe. The workers were from Eastern Europe and most were unable to speak good English, and so were vulnerable to this type of exploitation.

 

"There is absolutely no excuse to treat employees like this”.

 

Suffolk Mushrooms was fined £10,000 and £750 for not having a landlord Gas Safety report for the boiler, and ordered to pay £8,446.05 in costs and was found to have been guilty of a number of other safety offences. Now workers could launch their own personal injury compensation claims.

 

http://www.paulrooney.co.uk/?l=6