A CHARD commercial vehicle maintenance company has been ordered to pay £70,000 after a director died following a forklift truck tragedy.

Robert Dawe, aged 58, of Yeovil, was using the forklift to clean out a drainage gully at Chard Trucks Services premises in October 2010, when it overturned, trapping him.

Mr Dawe was taken to hospital with multiple rub fractures and later had a heart attack, suffered loss of oxygen to the brain and died nine weeks later on Christmas Day.

The incident was investigated by the Health and Safety Executive, which prosecuted Chard Trucks Services Ltd at Taunton Crown Court on Friday.

An HSE statement said their inquiry revealed the forklift didn’t have a seatbelt and had not been examined in accordance with the statutory requirement.

Nor had Mr Dawe or any other employees been provided with training in its use, the HSE says.

The court heard how the HSE had previously visited the company at its Millfield Trading Estate premises in 2008.

The executive had advised action on a number of safety issues including securing the key of the forklift truck on the basis that it was no longer being used and ensuring the competence of the person responsible for health and safety, who was said to be Mr Dawe at the time.

Chard Trucks Services pleaded guilty to two breaches of health and safety regulation and was fined £50,000 and ordered to pay £20,000 costs.

HSE inspector Mehtabb Hamid, speaking outside the court, said: “Chard Trucks Services neglected its duty of care toward its employees and, despite HSE’s advice well before the incident, provided an unsafe vehicle to untrained drivers for the purposes of operations which themselves had not been properly riskassessed.

"The risk of the forklift overturning on the site had not been identified or controlled.

"The dangers here were magnified as a result of the forklift not being fitted with a seatbelt.

“All employers must ensure forklift trucks and lifting equipment are properly maintained, potentially hazardous work is properly planned and robust safety precautions are put in place.”

The company declined to comment this week.