You are in > manchester.com  > News > Corus pays £3m price for Port Talbot deaths

Business

Corus pays £3m price for Port Talbot deaths

15/12/2006

Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus will be forced to pay over £3 million for its role in the deaths of three workers at its Port Talbot installations in November 2001.

High court judge Justice Lloyd Jones ordered Corus to pay a fine of £1.33 million and costs of £1.74 million in Swansea crown court today after the steelmaker yesterday admitted its guilt on charges of health and safety failings.

Len Radford, 53, Stephen Galsworthy, 25, and Andrew Hutin, 20, died when blast furnace number five exploded at the Port Talbot steelworks five years ago. An inquest conducted last year found verdicts of accidental death for all three men.

"What went wrong here is not the failure of the individual, but the management, in permitting such a situation to arise," Mr Justice Lloyd Jones was quoted by the Press Association news agency as saying.

Terry Rose, director of the Welsh Health and Safety Executive (HSE), said that today's verdict represented a "wake-up call for the industry".

"This was systematic corporate management failure at the Port Talbot works," he commented.

"Proper management attention may have broken the chain which led to the explosion. I hope Corus, and indeed the iron and steel industry worldwide, learn from Port Talbot and make sure that those lessons are put into practice in their management systems, and maintained."

Corus' fine is relatively small in comparison with the UK record for a health and safety infringement.

Gas provider Transco was fined £15 million after a family of four died in a gas explosion in their South Lanarkshire home in December 1999.

© Adfero Ltd