A loving husband died after he was crushed underneath a forklift truck in south Liverpool.
Robert Ambrose fell out of the truck he was using in a work yard in Wavertree in 2018 after another vehicle hit the load he was carrying and tipped it over.
Mr Ambrose was thrown out of the vehicle as it overturned and it then fell on him, leaving him with catastrophic injuries. He died in hospital a few days later.
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His employers, Chestnut Building Centres, were today fined by a district judge at Wirral Magistrates’ Court after admitting health and safety breaches.
Craig Morris, prosecuting, said Mr Ambrose, who had worked for the company for more than four decades, was trying to move ballast across the work yard in a forklift on November 15, 2018, when a lorry caught it and made it lose its balance.
The 62-year-old was not wearing a seatbelt, something which was not enforced by the company, and as a result he fell out of the vehicle as it overturned.
Mr Morris said: “He fell from the forklift which then fell on top of him.
“He was under the forklift until his colleagues were able to free him using another forklift truck.”
He was taken to Aintree Hospital where doctors amputated his leg in an attempt to save his life. Despite this, he lost too much blood and never regained consciousness.
Mr Morris said the company had carried out a risk assessment on the use of forklift trucks, which were regularly driven around the yard, but did not consider the possibility of them overturning.
An investigation led by Liverpool Council later found it was common for workers not to wear seatbelts.
Mr Ambrose’s wife, Elizabeth Ambrose, said she had been looking forward to spending the rest of her life with him and that his death had shattered their family.
She said: “My lovely husband was the nicest person you could ever meet.
“He was thoughtful, helpful, kind and hardworking.
“I miss him every day.”
Adrian Farrow, defending, said Chestnut Building Centres’ owners regarded Mr Ambrose like a member of their extended family, having worked in the yard for 30 years.
He said the owners had been left devastated by his death.
Mr Farrow said the lack of a rule on seatbelts had not been picked up on previous visits by council workers to the site but he said the company accepted from a very early stage that it was their failing.
He said: “It is not an excuse. The company’s guilty plea, a prompt guilty plea, shows that it accepts responsibility for what happened and accepts it fell short.”
Mr Farrow added that the company had taken immediate steps to improve safety standards both in Wavertree and at its other site in Prenton.
Among the increased measures are new mechanisms fitted to all forklift trucks which require the seatbelt to be strapped in before the engine will start.
District Judge James Hatton said Chestnut Building Centres’ failure to introduce proper rules around the use of seatbelts had catastrophic consequences.
He said: “Clearly Mr Ambrose was clearly loved and respected, with good reason.
“He was taken from his family and from all of us far too soon.
“It was, in the court’s view, avoidable. It should not have happened.”
District Judge Hatton added that the fact an accident had not happened previously was “down to luck rather than any good judgement”.
However, he said he accepted the company had made a series of improvements since the incident and that the accident was a result of substandard safety procedures rather than any wilful disregard for health and safety.
Chestnut Building Centres was fined £94,500 and will have to pay £66,025 to cover the costs of the prosecution and the council investigation.
