CRIMINAL LAW — Work health and safety — Offences — Category 2 — Elevated working platform (EWP) inside of truck trailer tipped — Worker ejected from EWP — No risk assessment — No safe system of work for maintenance and repair of truck trailers
SENTENCING — Relevant factors on sentence — Mid-range of objective seriousness — Aggravating factor — Serious injuries — Mitigating factors — Remorse — Early plea of guilty — Modest discount due to reduced capacity to pay a fine
Quick Take
1Where an offender company delegated day-to-day operational control to a subcontractor who resisted external involvement in safety systems, the offender's moral culpability for failing to implement safe systems of work may be significantly reduced, but the delegation does not extinguish the duty holder's responsibility under the WHS Act.
2The ease with which reasonably practicable safety measures were implemented after an incident does not necessarily establish that those measures were straightforward to implement before the incident, particularly where the offender's business structure depended on a subcontractor who controlled operations and resisted interference.
3An offender company with no independent revenue-generating capacity may receive a modest discount for limited capacity to pay a fine, even where a related entity is willing and able to fund the fine through intercompany borrowings.
