Firm fined £3.2m after 33,000-volt pylon shock

The National Grid has been fined £3.2m after a pylon worker sustained “catastrophic and life-changing” injuries from a 33,000-volt shock.

Justin Hollins received burns to 40% of his body and nerve damage at Treforest Industrial Estate in Rhondda Cynon Taf on 3 December 2020.

The power to the pylon should have been switched off while the work was carried out because it was impossible to maintain a safe working distance from the live wire, Cardiff Crown Court heard.

A second company, 4 Power Ltd, was fined £80,000. Both companies admitted guilt and apologised to Mr Hollins, a father-of-two.

Another worker “saw Mr Hollins hanging from his harness and thought he was dead”, the court was told.

He was taken to the specialist burns unit at Morriston Hospital, Swansea, where he received treatment for electrical burns and other injuries.

He was in a critical condition and had six operations in 10 days.

In a written personal impact statement, Mr Hollins told the court that at the time he was injured, he was “in peak physical condition and that probably saved my life”.

He described a long period of painful and difficult treatment. He said he still found "walking on uneven surfaces very difficult with my legs prone to giving way without notice" with "ongoing pain" and having received "psychological support".

He said he had "been stripped of the opportunity to provide" for his family by "doing the job I loved".

"Although I appreciate that I have been lucky to survive, I have to live with the physical and mental effects of the accident for life.

"I also have to live with the uncertainty of the long-term damage 33,000 volts have done to my internal organs.”

The court heard his condition would be unlikely to improve any further.

The judge, the Recorder of Cardiff, Tracey Lloyd-Clarke, said the fines needed to be “sufficiently substantial to have a real economic impact”

The court heard that the safe distance for working near to the live wire on the pylon was 1.1m (3ft 7in), but the work required Mr Hollins to come as close as 61.5cm (2ft) to the live circuit.

At that distance, electricity can travel through the air into someone without the need for there to be direct contact.

Prosecutor Rebecca Griffiths said that both National Grid and 4 Power Ltd had failed to adequately assess the risk ahead of the work beginning.

She said it was “impossible” for Mr Hollins to carry out his work without encroaching on the safe distance and that consequently the circuit should have been made “dead” whilst the repairs were carried out.

4 Power Ltd pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and was fined £80,000 and ordered to pay costs of £14,123.

National Grid Electricity Distribution (South Wales) plc pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 14 of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 and was fined £3.2m and ordered to pay costs of £20,460.

The judge said both of the defendants had “failed to properly assess the safety risk of working on this pylon had one or both of them done so properly, the work would not have been carried out while the conductor was live”.

She added that “once Mr Hollins got within the safety clearance distance which he couldn’t avoid, he had no chance to avoid the inevitable harm”.

Compensation to Mr Hollins will be dealt with in the civil court.