Lifting operation fine: £300,000 after a one-tonne hopper slid off forklift forks during a non-routine unload

A one-tonne metal hopper needed unloading at E H Hassell & Sons Limited. Moving a load of that size and weight was not routine at the site, and there was no established system for doing it. The hopper slid from forklift forks and struck Gary Taylor on the head.

Birmingham Magistrates’ Court imposed a £300,000 lifting operation fine on 23 October 2026, with £5,690 in costs. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reported the case on 26 October 2026.

The business pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 8(1) of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998. The duty isn’t new: it has been in place since 1998.

The case puts a practical question to anyone running the business with a yard crew: who has worked out how your staff will get an unfamiliar load off the trailer?

The lifting operation fine centred on a non-routine unload

Taylor was helping unload a lorry trailer at the business’s Trentham site on 24 March 2025. The trailer carried steel components for a large filtration system.

Workers placed the forks underneath the unsecured hopper to lift it from the trailer bed. Taylor was standing alongside it when it slid off.

Taylor, who was 63, suffered fractures to his skull, neck and spine, as well as two broken ribs. He spent three weeks in hospital and needed seven months off work.

In comments published by HSE, he said: “I want to be a person that hopefully will become more of a person than a shadow of my former self.”

HSE found the lift had not been properly planned by a competent person. The hopper’s weight, size, centre of gravity and lifting points had not been adequately assessed. No safe system of work had been put in place.

An unfamiliar load needs its unloading method settled first

HSE inspector Claire Whitehurst described Taylor as an experienced worker. She stressed the importance of competent planning and safe execution, especially for non-routine tasks involving heavy or awkward loads.

HSE’s “Planning and organising lifting operations” guidance describes the knowledge needed: sufficient theoretical and practical understanding of the work and equipment, together with the relevant legal requirements.

The guidance also calls for practical steps to prevent people being struck by loads. An earlier lifting operation plan case, where staff steadied a forklift load, turned on each person’s position and task.

HSE accepts a generic plan for straightforward, common lifts. Where that line falls also came up in an earlier lifting operations planning fine over a forklift unload. HSE says existing plans may need review, and more complex routine lifts may need planning each time. For much more complex operations, its guidance calls for a written plan prepared by someone with suitable, specific competence. Moving a one-tonne hopper was not a regular task at the site, so it was not that kind of lift.

Before your next unfamiliar delivery is unloaded, the person planning it needs to establish what the load weighs, how it will be secured and where your staff will stand while it moves.