Posted By Emyr Evans Last week Corus were fined £1.33M for breaches in H&S laws that resulted in 3 deaths, 12 seriously burnt & 5 "minor" injuries after an explosion at the Port Talbot site in November 2001. Corus made post tax profit of £143M last year. The catastrophic blast had sent molten metal raining down on steel workers. Over two days at Swansea Crown Court evidence was detailed to the judge illustrating the catalogue of errors which led to the tragedy. Among them were years of internal recommendations by senior staff at Corus relating to the blast furnace, which were all ignored. Mr Justice Lloyd-Jones said, in passing sentence, that the "catalogue of failures" meant it was "an accident waiting to happen." Over two days at Swansea Crown Court evidence was detailed to the judge illustrating the catalogue of errors which led to the tragedy. Afterwards Terry Rose, director of the Health and Safety Executive in Wales, said the tragedy had been caused by an "endemic management failure" at the Port Talbot plant. He said, "This major explosion, although unforeseen and unpredicted, was preventable had Corus followed up in particular the advice and recommendations of its own internal committees and inquiry boards. But this it failed to do on so many occasions that it appears to have been an endemic management failure at Port Talbot." A few points that I'd like to open to discussion: Firstly I wonder, like many others in the area that I've spoken to recently; is it possible that the HSE will always prove it difficult, costly - if not impossible - to bring manslaughter charges against an individual, or members of a board, if he/she/they are based in another country (EU or otherwise)? Since a lot of foreign companies are buying up / investing in UK companies and normally make the financial decisions off-shore that may have catastrophic safety repercussions in the UK, knowing full-well that their highly paid legal team will always be able to protect the local and international stakeholders. Secondly, the HSE stated that since there was a string of events that all lead to the accident (multiple causation) - and not one particular root cause, or individual, it was impossible to prosecute any individuals involved. How often will this be the defence for preventing individuals who have acted in a negligent manner? Again a good defence legal team will nearly always be able to pass the buck along the management line to more senior managers - and eventually they will be so far removed from the day-to-day activities of the site that they will hardly be likely to face case personal prosecution - let alone being proven guilty. Senior management working for larger companies that can afford better legal representation will never be found guilty! Thirdly, a discussion over Sunday lunch in a pub yesterday - with 2 EHS professionals and 4 non-EHS professionals present: How come 5 women are killed by one / two people in Ipswich recently and there are 500+ officers involved in the case and huge amounts of moneys are afforded the police to apprehend the murderer(s) - 3 killed in works accident - it takes 5 years to get the company to court. In reality though with so few deaths in the workplace compared with other killers - driving, smoking, cancer etc.; is the H&S profession only scratching a tickle - rather than dealing with real health issues.

Posted By Jim Walker When you compare the fine against this year's profits, then its a bit of a joke. Presumably this now clears the way for the individuals to claim damages. It would be nice to think that they all get a massive sum and the insurance company then goes after Corus & its management for a claw back. Presumably there has been a breach of contract by Corus with their Insurance provider. If you contrast this with the USA / BP incident, it would appear to me that BP really only started to take the court case against them seriously when the USA courts threatened to drag their CEO into the dock. In other words, as you say Emyr, they rely on the lawyers to steer the courts away from the big boys.

Posted By steven bentham Sounds like a difficult and well done job for the H.S.E.

Posted By Tabs The response to the presence of a serial killer in Ipswich is appropriate when you realise that it is almost inevitable that further deaths will occur if that level of policing is not present. Murder remains a far more serious crime in the social conscience, and it is not surprising that it does. Post-accident investigation is seldom to prevent imminent recurrence, so the imperative is different. All delays are frustrating, but to divert large numbers of police away from other duties to shorten a delay in accident investigation is probably not appropriate.

Posted By Bob Shillabeer I must say this is not the first time that an incident of this nature has happened in a British steel plant. I remeber as a child my best friend's brother was killed at Ebbw Vale when a slag ladle was being charged with molten slag while a smal amount of water was in the ladle. The resultant explosion covered him with molten slag and he died six weeks later. Another quite high profile incident happened in the Llanwern steel plant when a TV crew were seriously injured and several died when a blow out from the converter spewed motel iron over them. So the problem of molten metal/slag mixing with water is not an unforseeable event, it is well understood by those who work in the steel industry. My understanding of Port Talbot No 5 blast furnace was the defects were known about and a meeting took place on the day of the incident to discuss it but still nothing was done because production could not be affected. There is a need for judges to ensure that tarrifs are relevant to the crime so in some ways thier hands are tied. Now that a successful procecution has been achieved it follows that civil cases will now be brought with much more likelihood of a successful outcome being obtained. Corus and its predecessor British Steel has an appalling record on safety with quite a number of procecutions over the last few years. Its not well done HSE but rather get in there and start to sort them out. Safety in the steel industry is dispite i'm sure the best efforts of safety managers seen as a joke that tries to stop people doing anything (personal friends in the steel industry tell me this). Corporate homecide will hopefully make it easier but a jail term for a senior manager is almost impossible.

Posted By Jim Walker Bob makes some interesting points; Corus before & after this incident have had some pretty serious incidents; so where was HSE? I'm too young to comment on British Steel past record, but my Dad (a BS safety officer) worked for them and I was under the impression they were very good (relatively) way back then. I distinctly remember when British Steel started the sell off, we are going back 25 years here, that many said that first thing that would get cut back would be safety. Sure enough within months of my Dad's plant acquiring new owners they got rid of safety dept (my dad got a "pools win" redundo payment).

Posted By Bob Shillabeer Hi Guys, The point I was trying to make is that Corus has a bad record so where is the HSE they should be all over them like a rash. I knew a very cuddly HMRI inspector who made regular visits tothe patch I was working in and we got in very well because he was always looking around and keeping us in touch with the latest in things. We also worked with him and got him on our side and cooperated with his wishes. This says that not all HSE inspectors are bad news, they will help and are goog at it. But when a company like Corus clearly don't pay enough attention to safety they should get thier warrants out and put the screws on them to improve. Since it came into being the HSE has done a terrific job reducing accidents in British industry but there are still some rogue elements.

Posted By Holly McDermott No one asks if they are doing their job properly because we all know they are not. By that I do not mean individuals, its the system. It is just another highly inefficient government agency. Why is it difficult to identify individuals who have been negligent? If we have evidence of managers being given advice about problems, then we have evidence about managers ignoring that advice?

Posted By Jim Walker Mark, Its important we do not tar the whole of Corus with the same brush. And its reassuring you comment that there appears to be a big shift to sorting this out. The bit in the Corus court report that caught my attention, and you can see it clearly all the way to Aberfan and beyond, was "they" had been constantly warned that things were not right. However, the "money men" chose to ignore this, were not made to answer for their actions and walked away with a smirk on their faces. After Herald of Free Enterprise, Labour (then in opposition) said they were going to sort out the law so the big boys could not walk away. 15 years later we are still waiting.

Posted By db John, Are you saying that HSE only took the case for the publicity? That they choose which cases to take based on the media attention it gets? That does not come into it - only if there's a breach and the evidence is there. Most cases get pitiful fines and poor publicity. It's pretty obvious that the way publicity works is that you only get to see what the media think is juicy - most things HSE deal with is not so you dont see it.

Posted By Christopher Folks, I suspect like myself, you have all seen unsafe acts and reported them to the appropriate manager who could have done something about it. However, if we as professionals have allowed it to go unchecked, are we not as guilty as those directors who have not taken action to address these risks. How many of us have just carried on, picking up our salary rather than picking up a phone to the HSE. I have no sympathy with the Directors of CORUS, but then I would also question who were the persons who reported the incidents, and were they just looking after themselves, when they failed to bring in the HSE.

Posted By Andy Brazier Some Corus sites have been COMAH since 2002. This was after the accident.

Posted By Phil Grace Must comment on an early response to this thread regarding EL insurance. Firstly it is highly likely that Corus are self insured. They will arrange with an EL insurer to issue certificates and handle i.e. settle claims but will fund the claims themselves. Secondly EL Insurers do not "claw back" from policyholders. The role of EL insurance is to provide compensation (where warranted through negligence) and not to "punish" or penalise errant employers. In fact insurers are barred from inserting certain types of clauses into the policy. For example, a clause that said if legislation had been breached the policy would not operate. This is to protect the injured employee. Similarly if insurers used "breach of contract" type wordings all the employer has to do is go bankrupt and the insurer would have little chance of getting back their money. Insurance is about spreading costs not punishment! If all firms practised good risk management accidents would fall, claims would follow and premiums would reduce. You guessed it - I work for an EL insurer...!

Posted By Ian G Hutchings Hi Just to comment on the 'foreign ownership will affect safety'. This is not always the case. I have seen some UK plc company sites in India that are better managed than those in the UK. I know that Corus have been investing a large amount of money in improving safety standards and performance and so have Tata Steel, though they do not have the same legal/societal pressure that you get in the UK, they know that if they injure people it damages revenue and reputation. Like any large organisation it takes a long time to turn the ship round (often years); though this incident is not excusable, hopefully many lessons have already been learnt. Ian