Prosecution Details

Being an employee, failing to take reasonable care to avoid adversely affecting the safety or health of any other person through any act or omission at work: ss 20(1)(b) and 20A(3) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984.

The Accused worked for Metalcorp Recyclers Pty. Ltd. (ACN 002 707 262). One of his tasks included driving forklifts at the workplace located at 24 Chisolm Crescent, Kewdale. The workplace consisted of a yard and buildings where metal products were recycled.

On 16 February 2007 the Accused was driving a Yale forklift loaded with a large steel cage containing aluminium cans for recycling. The steel cage was quite wide and when elevated partially obscured the driver of the forklift's forward view.

The injured person was a labour hire worker working at the workplace. He was walking in the yard at the workplace on the left hand side of the pathway, returning from the weighbridge to the oxy-acetylene gas cutting area where he normally worked. He was travelling in the same direction as the forklift driven by the Accused. The Accused was travelling forwards and his vision was obscured by the elevated cage and mast of the forklift. He did not see the labour hire worker and drove the edge of the cage into his back. The labour hire worker fell to the ground and suffered a fractured pelvis and other internal injuries requiring him to have several surgeries in regards to complications arising from this injury.

The Accused had been trained in the correct way to drive a forklift when under a load that obscured forward vision and when later interviewed admitted that he was aware of this. The operator's manual for this forklift also observed that direction of travel is determined by the best visibility available to the operator.

Had the Accused been travelling in reverse, as he had been trained to when forward vision was obscured by a load, this accident could have been avoided.

Plead Guilty