A Widnes chemical manufacturer has been fined £120,000 after safety errors meant one of its chemical reactors exploded.
Pieces of heavy machinery were thrown as far as 25 metres away from CatAlloy’s premises after an explosion took place back in 2015.
The blast, later found to be caused due to a build up of hydrogen, meant the area around the business’s Moss Bank Road had to be cordoned off after it took place on December 3 of that year.
READ MORE: Skip hire owner was at 'top of the tree' of Class A drug trade
A judge at Liverpool Crown Court today said it was only good luck that no one was injured or killed after the explosion as he handed the company’s owners a hefty fine and ordered them to pay prosecution costs.
Nigel Lawrence KC, prosecuting, told Liverpool Crown Court this morning that CatAlloy produces a nickel catalyst, a product required in chemical industries.
The chemical process used to create it takes place in a reactor and causes hydrogen to be produced, something which could be explosive in high amounts. To guard against the risk of a blast, nitrogen is supposed to be fed into the reactor. However, on the day of the explosion a series of failures meant this did not happen.
A large explosion then took place that morning, throwing pieces of equipment, some of which were as heavy as 184kgs, through the building’s ceiling. Some came to rest 20 to 25 metres away from the building.
No one was injured in the blast. However, a similar explosion in November 2011 saw one worker suffer minor injuries. A separate set of court proceedings following that explosion had concluded just three months before the second explosion and saw the business fined £80,000 and ordered to pay £80,000 in costs.
Following the December 2015 explosion, the Health and Safety Executive opened another investigation and eventually charged the company and director Steven Welsby with breaches of health and safety legislation.
A trial was due to take place later this year but the company and Welsby pleaded guilty to various breaches and appeared for sentence today.
Keith Morton KC, defending, appealed to the judge to reduce any fine significantly and told the court the business was now in a significantly worse financial position than in 2015, having made significant losses for two years before returning to a modest profit last year.
He said economic turmoil, particularly the effect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the price of raw materials, meant the outlook for the business remained uncertain.
Judge Garrett Byrne said the health and safety breaches were aggravated significantly by the fact that a similar breach had taken place before. He added that the nature of the chemical process meant it was inherently dangerous and that the company had not taken the steps required to mitigate the risk.
Judge Byrne said: “It is only by good fortune that none of the defendant’s employees were injured, or worse, by fleeing debris. Similarly, it is good fortune that no one nearby was injured or killed.”
He ordered CatAlloy to pay a fine of £120,000 and prosecution costs of £50,000 but accepted a request from Mr Morton that the company be given two years to settle its financial penalties.
READ NEXT:
Pervert who was 'always looking for little girls' walks free from court
Thug befriended man at pub before robbing him at knifepoint
Doors burned with blowtorch by burglars who broke into homes to steal luxury cars
Faces of 11 people jailed in Liverpool this week
Burglar rifled through woman's home while she was at her dad's funeral
