Dominic Kay KC secures acquittal for Arla Foods Limited
Dominic Kay KC, instructed by Robert Starr and Rachel Turnbull of Walker Morris, secured a unanimous not guilty verdict for Arla Foods Limited. The verdict followed a two-week trial at Reading Crown Court and related to an accident alleged to have occured in the early hours of 15th December 2015 when an employee of A’s contractor P (responsible for operating the outbound section of A’s large dairy site near Aylesbury) reported he had been struck by a trailer unit being reversed into a parking space by another of P’s employees. A argued that any risk to P’s employees as a consequence of such reversing manoeuvres was not related to the manner in which A conducted its undertaking and/or, if it was, A had taken all reasonably practicable steps to discharge its duty under s.3 HSWA. A separate count alleging a failure to discharge a duty under regulation 17 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 was withdrawn from the jury’s consideration at the close of the prosecution case (following argument in relation to the overlap between the two allegations). Following the not guilty verdict on the HSWA count, the Crown offered no evidence on the second count and a further not guilty verdict was therefore recorded by the Court.
