The Sharpe Pritchard team provide an update on a recent case in which Travis Perkins, a building materials supplier, was fined £2 million for causing a fatal accident.
Simon Kiely, a Partner in Sharpe Pritchard’s Dispute Resolution team, acted for Lewes District Council in prosecuting national building materials supplier Travis Perkins.
The prosecution came about for offences under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (the Act) following a fatal accident involving wood falling from one of their delivery vehicles.
At a hearing on 23 January 2025, the Defendant was sentenced to a £2 million fine and ordered to pay £85,000 in prosecution costs.
The incident
On the morning of 13 May 2020, a flatbed truck loaded with lengths of timber and other materials left the Travis Perkins Newhaven depot.
The materials on the back of the truck had been loaded on by the driver, and then checked by another employee.
Very shortly thereafter, as the vehicle drove along the A26, part of the load came loose and fell from the side of the lorry.
Whilst some of the timber landed on the road surface, one length of wood penetrated the windscreen of an oncoming vehicle, causing the driver of that vehicle, Jack Stevens to be fatally injured.
Video footage taken from the cab of the lorry shows the load being discarded and striking the vehicle, as well as the immediate aftermath with the car stationary in the middle of the carriageway.
Investigating health and safety failings
Environmental Health Officers from Lewes District Council attended Travis Perkins’s Newhaven depot on several occasions in the days and weeks that followed, where they met with senior company officers.
During these visits, the officers observed several other health and safety breaches at the depot, which resulted in five statutory improvement notices being served on the company to address these further health and safety issues.
Key evidence from the investigation
During the course of the subsequent investigations, council officers obtained various documents including the personnel and training records, and various risk assessments and procedure guides.
This material demonstrated that training had not been taken seriously at the branch, with staff members not being checked or assessed to ensure that they understood the training provided.
The documents obtained also appeared to demonstrate that staff members at the Newhaven branch had not followed the correct load-checking procedures on the day of the incident.
It further transpired that the same driver had in fact been involved in two previous incidents where materials had come loose from a vehicle he was driving, but that the company did not address these incidents sufficiently to avoid further problems in the future.
Photographs and videos of the delivery lorry taken on the day of the incident demonstrated that only a single strap had been used to secure the load of wood, which was wholly insufficient.
Industry guidance suggests that three straps should have been used, and the company’s training on load security failed to make it clear how such loads should have been properly secured.
An officer from the Health and Safety Executive provided evidence on the means and method of securing the load and found that it was:
- Grossly inadequate
- Unsafe from the point of entering the public road network
- Entirely preventable with proper planning and practices in place
Simon Kiely advised officers at Lewes District Council throughout the investigation and prepared the case for the prosecution following its conclusion.
Legal proceedings and prosecution
The case was first heard at Brighton Magistrates’ Court in November 2024 where the Defendant company entered a guilty plea at the earliest opportunity.
Due to the seriousness of the offence, the case was committed to the Crown Court for sentence.
Sentencing
On 23 January 2025, the case came before Her Honour Judge Henson KC sitting at Hove Crown Court trial centre for sentence.
Prosecuting counsel, Richard Heller (2 Hare Court) set out the case against the company, highlighting the aggravating evidence gathered as part of the investigation and making reference to the Victim Personal Statements provided by Mr Stevens’ family.
In mitigation, the Defendant company explained how they had taken significant steps to improve their practices and procedures since the tragic incident and asserted that they were now an industry leader on load security training for their employees.
Her Honour Judge Henson KC gave the company credit for their early guilty plea, and considering both the aggravating and mitigating features of the case, assessed the case in accordance with the relevant Sentencing Guidelines.
The learned Judge found that the company had medium culpability for the offence and that it fell into harm category ‘2’ on the basis that:
- The seriousness of the harm risked was ‘Level A’
- The likelihood of harm was ‘medium’
This was then then moved up to harm category ‘1’ due to the circumstances of the offence having put a significant number of road users at risk and resulted in the death of the driver.
Whilst the company was found to be a Very Large Organisation (as defined by the sentencing guidelines), the Judge held that it would not be necessary to move outside of the relevant sentencing range for a Large Organisation in order to achieve a proportionate sentence in this case.
Her Honour Judge Henson KC then fined the company £2 million and ordered them to pay £85,000 in prosecution costs.
This hearing brought a long and detailed investigation to a final conclusion.
Sharpe Pritchard was greatly assisted by the work undertaken by prosecuting counsel, Richard Heller of 2 Hare Court, as well as the investigating officers at Lewes District Council in the team led by Joanna Dunk, and by Oliver Dixon in Lewes and Eastbourne Council’s shared legal services team.
Everyone at Sharpe Pritchard’s thoughts remain with the family of Jack Stevens, including his parents, and his three children.
Their loss is unimaginable.
Simon was privileged to have been asked to speak on behalf of Mr Stevens’ family after the hearing.
The entire prosecution team was grateful for the family’s assistance throughout the case, especially through their provision of victim personal statements for the Court’s benefit when sentencing the case.
Simon Kiely is a Partner at Sharpe Pritchard LLP.
For further insight and resources on local government legal issues from Sharpe Pritchard, please visit the SharpeEdge page by clicking on the banner below.
This video is for general awareness only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. The law may have changed since this page was first published. If you would like further advice and assistance in relation to any issue raised in this article, please contact us by telephone or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
