First Capital East Ltd (First), who are based at Macmillan House, Paddington Station, were fined £120,000 and ordered to pay costs of £95,000 at Croydon Crown Court, after pleading guilty to breaching section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

On 11 January 2003, Brian Norman, an engineer, was crouching in front of a bus to replace its headlamp, while it was queuing up to be cleaned and refueled. While he was doing this, an employee of First's contract cleaners walked from the rear and climbed into the driver's seat, to move the bus forward. He could not see Mr Norman, and there was no other indication that anyone was working on the bus.

As a consequence the bus ran over Mr Norman who tragically died of his injuries at the scene.

HSE's Inspector Charles Linfoot, said:

"Employers have a duty to organise their workplace so that vehicles and pedestrians are segregated, so far as is reasonably practicable. They should ensure that operations such as carrying out minor repairs and cleaning and refuelling, do not put employees and others at risk of injury or death."

"This sentence of a major bus company emphasises the need for operators of public bus services to properly manage the health and safety of their activities. This incident has highlighted serious shortcomings in many areas, such as risk assessment, supervision, monitoring, and co-ordination. In our view, the death was a wholly avoidable result of these failings."

If operations at the depot had been properly managed, the risk of this type of incident occurring would have been highlighted and assessed at an early stage. There should have been a properly-enforced ban on repair and maintenance work where buses were being moved. There was a lack of proper supervision and co-ordination by First Capital East Limited of the work of engineers and the operations of the run-in line movement of vehicles around the depot.

In his summing up, Judge Ainley stated that he was satisfied that the death of Mr Norman was a direct result of the breach by the company and it was quite foreseeable that such a situation could occur if the site wasn't supervised.