Harris Transport Ltd lost their appeal, heard at Southampton Crown Court on 2 June, against a £28,000 fine handed to them on 23 January 2008. The fine resulted from an incident that left an employee permanently disabled. The company now have to pay the fine in full and have incurred additional court costs of £5,300.

Lee McMahon, from Southampton, suffered severe injuries to both legs when he was run over by a forklift truck whilst working at Harris Transport in Southampton. An HSE investigation discovered a systemic breakdown in Harris Transport's health and safety management.

The incident occurred despite Lee McMahon wearing appropriate high visibility clothing. At the time, very dark conditions were reported, because the workplace lighting was deficient, and there were general maintenance problems with the forklift trucks. There was also no separation between vehicles and pedestrians, creating a dangerous situation in an environment where the lack of lighting restricted visibility.

Additional factors were that peripheral equipment on the forklift trucks created a number of blind spots and drivers had little or no training with new forklift trucks.

Ray Kelly, the HSE prosecuting Inspector said:

"This case illustrates how easily normal work places can become incident scenes when health and safety management systems breakdown. Some 15 months after the incident, Mr. McMahon is still in great pain, unable to work, and never likely to again.

"The HSE were very disappointed that Harris Transport Ltd felt the need to challenge the original penalty, which had followed a very serious incident, resulting in the permanent disablement of one of their employees."