Two firms facing hearing over man's death at Shropshire industrial site
Two companies are being prosecuted after a man died at an industrial site while dismantling a steel hopper.
Jose Luis Santos Canal, 31, was one of a team of seven Spaniards working for a sub-contracting firm at the Befesa aluminium waste recycling plant at Mereside Industrial Park at Fenns Bank, near Whitchurch, when he died on July 14, 2015.
Mold Crown Court was told yesterday that Befesa Salt Slags Ltd had admitted a health and safety charge at Wrexham Magistrates Court in January and had been committed to the crown court for sentence.
But at crown court Judge Rhys Rowlands was told that the company did not accept the full prosecution case and a hearing would need to be held to decide the basis on which the company should be sentenced.
It had admitted that it failed to run its operation in a way that a person not in its employment was not put at risk.
The court was told a Spanish company, Porvi Construcciones y Contratas, faced a health and safety charge arising from the same incident but it had failed to attend at the magistrates court and had not attended yesterday's crown court plea hearing.
But the HSE had decided to proceed with the prosecution whether it was present or not. Its trial was fixed for October with a pre-trial hearing in June.
The trial judge would then also conduct a so-called Newton Hearing in respect of the Befesa company, to establish the basis upon which it was to be sentenced.
