A SCOTTISH estate has been fined £140,000 for breaching health and safety laws after one of its workers was killed during a tree-felling operation.
Buccleuch Estates Limited admitted failing to observe proper guidelines, which could have prevented the death of Ross Findlay at Bogrie Wood near Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfries.
Mr Findlay, who had learning difficulties, was killed when he was crushed by a 216-foot tree that had been uprooted and knocked over by another tree that was being cut down.
An investigation was launched,leading to Buccleuch Estates Limited being prosecuted at Dumfries Sheriff Court for failing to properly assess the risk, provide safety equipment or a safe working environment.
Mr Findlay should have been at least two tree lengths away from the tree being felled. However, he was well within the exclusion zone when he was struck and killed.
HSE Inspector Aileen Jardine said: "This was an entirely avoidable incident and the failures by The Buccleuch Estate directly resulted in Mr Findlay's tragic death. A system of waves and nods is not a safe way to manage the felling of large, heavy trees … This informal and unsafe way of working had been in place unchallenged and not updated for over 15 years, with the estate making no efforts to follow industry safety guidelines or to even accurately assess the risks its workers faced."
A Buccleuch Estates spokesman said: "Buccleuch Estates deeply regrets that the implementation of safety provisions that were in place at the time failed to prevent the accident."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article