IN Brief:
- Martin Bennett was killed by a moving 1.6-tonne counterweight at the Sharpness plant.
- Investigators found that perimeter fencing had routinely been removed, allowing access to dangerous machinery.
- Dragon Alfa Cement was fined £1m and ordered to pay £9,621 in costs.
Dragon Alfa Cement has been fined £1m after an employee was crushed by a 1.6-tonne concrete counterweight at its bagging plant in Sharpness, Gloucestershire.
Martin Bennett, 35, died on 4 August 2021 while working around equipment used to handle pallets of 25kg cement bags. The concrete weight formed part of the machinery and moved vertically as pallets were raised through the system.
During its investigation, the Health and Safety Executive found that a substantial section of perimeter fencing had routinely been removed over a prolonged period. Without the barrier, workers could enter an area containing dangerous moving parts, including the counterweight.
Dragon Alfa Cement pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. Bristol Magistrates’ Court imposed the £1m fine and ordered the company to pay £9,621 in costs on 21 July 2026.
The prosecution centred on the company’s failure to prevent access to moving machinery. Fixed guarding is intended to maintain physical separation between people and hazardous equipment, avoiding reliance on individual judgement, warning signs, or instructions whenever the machinery operates.
Where access is required for cleaning, inspection, maintenance, or fault clearance, the guarding arrangement must support a controlled method of entry. Interlocked gates, isolation procedures, locked-off energy sources, permits, and confirmation that stored or gravitational energy has been neutralised can all form part of that system.
Removed safeguards can become an accepted condition
Temporary changes to machinery can gradually become embedded in routine operation, particularly when fencing or panels are first removed to improve access, visibility, cleaning, or production. Unless the original protection is reinstated immediately or replaced by an engineered alternative, the hazard remains exposed.
Once an unsafe arrangement has existed without an incident for a period, familiarity can weaken the perception of risk. Workers adapt their movements around the machinery, supervisors stop challenging the condition, and later employees may assume that the altered layout has been approved.
Routine inspections therefore need to verify more than the general condition of equipment. Guards, interlocks, emergency stops, access controls, and isolation points must remain present and functional, while any missing safeguard should trigger immediate action rather than entering a maintenance backlog while production continues.
The same enforcement principles apply across construction operations, as shown by the prosecution following a fatal fall into a flooded excavation. In both cases, foreseeable exposure required effective physical controls and a safe system of work.
Plant modifications should also pass through formal change control. Removing a panel, altering a sensor, changing a cleaning route, or introducing a new production method can invalidate the original risk assessment, even when the modification appears minor.
Contractors working within operational manufacturing sites face similar responsibilities when temporary access is created during installation or maintenance. Responsibility for isolating equipment, controlling retained energy, and restoring protection must be explicit between the site operator, principal contractor, specialist subcontractor, and individual carrying out the work.
Training and supervision remain necessary, but neither replaces physical protection that prevents access. An experienced worker may understand the process and still be exposed to equipment whose movement is automatic, unexpected, remotely triggered, or driven by gravity.
Stored energy requires particular attention because a machine can remain dangerous after electrical or hydraulic power has been isolated. Raised weights, suspended components, compressed systems, tensioned springs, and elevated loads may still move unless they are mechanically secured or lowered into a safe position.
Near misses and reports of defeated safeguards should be investigated with the same discipline as equipment faults. A missing fence, bypassed switch, or uncontrolled entry route already indicates that the protective system has failed, even where no injury has yet occurred.
Production pressure can make unsafe adaptations appear convenient, especially when guarding complicates cleaning or fault clearance. Where that conflict arises, the correct response is to redesign the access and isolation arrangement rather than allowing workers to enter a hazardous zone during normal operation.
Dragon Alfa Cement’s sentence reflects the consequences of allowing access to a high-energy moving system. Machinery guarding must remain effective during ordinary production, while any necessary entry must take place through an engineered and controlled isolation process.
