Health and safety - Lexology
The operator of Luton Airport and a design subcontractor have been ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £372,595 following the death of an elderly woman at a pedestrian crossing at the airport. The woman was using a pedestrian crossing between a terminal building and a passenger drop off zone when she was hit by a delivery vehicle. The crossing was on private land leased by the airport’s operator and had been designed by a subcontractor. The HSE investigation found that the crossing was poorly positioned, and did not match the standards expected on public roads.
Following a trial, the airport’s operator was found guilty of health and safety offences and fined £75,000 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £197,595. The contractor was fined £70,000 with costs of £30,000. The driver of the delivery vehicle had previously been acquitted on a charge of dangerous driving.
]The airport was ordered to pay prosecution costs of more than 2.5 times the amount of the fine imposed. The trial lasted six weeks, which was no doubt a key factor in the high level of costs. Both defendants will also have been obliged to pay their own legal costs in addition to those of the prosecution, which highlights the financial risks of trying to defend a health and safety prosecution. Increasingly courts offer very little leniency in payment of prosecution costs and guilty defendants are required to pay in full, even where the amount is considerably more than the fine.