Engineering firm fined £80k after 22-year-old crushed to death under machinery

Blackburn-based Partwell Special Steels Limited have been fined £80,000 after an incident on site killed an employee, when he was crushed under a machine.

Connor Borthwick (22) was working for the company at its Bruce Street site on 25 November 2021, moving a large cutting press machine across a workshop floor.

Connor and another employee were attempting to place skates underneath the machine to move it more easily. It was whilst the machine was being lowered by a jack onto these skates that it became unbalanced, and toppled backwards onto Connor.

Connor was trapped beneath, where he suffered catastrophic crush injuries. Subsequently, he died from these injuries.

Connor’s sister Emily has released a statement on behalf of the family, saying Connor was her “amazing, caring, loving and funny little brother”.

“Everyone loved Connor,” she said.

“He was a good soul, and this was evident from the more than 700 people who came to his funeral to pay their respects and share their personal accounts of how Connor had touched their lives.

“He was 22, life hadn’t begun for him, and it was over.

“Some simple steps should have been taken and weren’t, if they were Connor would be with us today.

“It’s hard to explain to people what we have been through, are going through. We don’t want another family to go through what we have.”

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that the system of work Connor and his colleague were using to move the machine had not been planned.

Partwell Special Steels Limited of Stanley Street, Blackburn, had not undertaken an assessment of the risks involved with moving the machine. The task itself had not been suitably planned, employee were not provided with a safe system of work.

Neither Connor nor his colleague were provided with suitable and sufficient training to make them competent to complete the task.

If Partwell Special Steels Limited had completed a suitable and sufficient assessment of the suitability of the work equipment, this would have shown how unsuitable the skates they used were for this work.

Appearing at Preston Magistrates Court on 16 December 2024, the company pleaded guilty to breaching regulation 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. They were fined £80,000 and were ordered to pay £6,713.

HSE Inspector Anthony Banks spoke following the sentencing:

“This company’s failures resulted in the death of a much loved young man.

“Those in control of work activities, including the movement of heavy machinery from one part of a site to another, need to assess the risks of that work, and plan a safe way to undertake it.

“This tragic incident could have easily been avoided with the right controls in place.

“My thoughts remain with Connor’s family.”

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