THE owner of an engineering firm has been fined £12,000 after he admitted breaching health and safety laws after a worker was crushed to death on a pier.

Welder and fabricator Christopher Hartley, 45, died after being struck by a moving excavator and crushed between its bucket and a fixed cabinet at the end of Longhope Pier in Hoy, Orkney, in November 2012.

Kirkwall Sheriff Court heard yesterday (wed) that Mr Hartley was working for William Reid's E&M Engineering Services when it was hire to replace the fenders on the RNLI's pontoon.

Mr Hartley, of Thurso, and two other men were unloading steel and aluminium panels from a flatbed van onto the pier using an excavator.

After the last panel was lowered, the excavator operator heard Mr Reid shout that Mr Hartley was lying face down on the floor near to the hose cabinet and was unresponsive. He died at the scene.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that although Mr Reid had carried out an assessment of the risks involved in the task, he had not identified mechanical lifting as a hazard and the risks associated with using an excavator.

It said reasonable precautions were not put in place to reduce the risk of a person being hit by the moving load or excavator.

Mr Hartley and another worker did not have their hi-visibility jackets on and the artificial lighting was also poor.

Reid, 64, of Scrabster, Caithness, had pleaded guilty to breaching the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998. HSE said the tragedy could have been avoided.