At Carlisle Crown Court today, Sellafield Ltd was fined for a failure to discharge its duty under Section 3(1) of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 whereby workers had received internal doses of radiation. At an earlier hearing at Whitehaven Magistrates Court on 24th July 2009 Sellafield Ltd had pleaded guilty to the charges and was committed for sentencing to the Crown Court.
Prosecuting the case, the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) told the Carlisle Court that the two contractor employees had been drilling a section of concrete floor in the Product and Finishing Store where Plutonium Contaminated Wastes (PCM) are drummed up. They were removing an area of fixed contamination on 11th July 2007 when they were contaminated by airborne radiation released as a result of the drilling work. The two workers, employed by Stobart Ltd., received internal doses of plutonium of 15.7 mSv and 2.6 mSv respectively.
Imposing a fine of £75,000 with £26,100 costs, Judge Batty described the failures as extremely serious. Referring to his fine as properly reflecting the culpability of the defendants, he noted: the significant failings to adequately assess the hazards and risks involved; the failure to communicate the hazards to all involved and the failure to provide proper training for Stobart’s workers.
Commenting on today’s conviction, CORE’s spokesman Martin Forwood said “Added to the well documented list of worker contamination accidents over the years, today’s case again highlights Sellafield’s sloppy attitude to nuclear safety. It also reflects a worrying inability to learn from past mistakes – despite Court convictions and fines – and raises major concerns that these same operators might someday be let loose in the new reactors proposed for West Cumbria”.
Whilst not subject to today’s court case, the HSE’s Quarterly Report (1st January to 31st March 2009) on Sellafield, reported that more radioactive contamination had been identified on and around redundant ductwork in the same Product & Finishing Store at Sellafield. Citing evidence of a spread of contamination on to concrete and an adjacent area of ground, the HSE’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate (NII) said this demonstrated ‘a lack of control by the Licensee’.
Sellafield last appeared at Carlisle Crown Court in October 2006 when it was convicted and fined £500,000 over the major leakage of dissolved nuclear fuel and nitric acid at the THORP reprocessing plant. Two years earlier the company was fined £30,000 at the same court for failing to provide adequate safety for a marine diver working on the site’s sea discharge pipeline.
Although the nuclear industry operates a compensation scheme for radiation linked diseases, workers must have had an occupational radiation dose with one of the Scheme’s employers as well as having been a member of one of the Scheme trades’ unions. Stobart Ltd. does not appear on the list.