Two Companies Fined Following Fatal Racking Collapse at Bingley Industrial Estate

At Leeds Crown Court, Space Productiv Ltd and Collins Site Services Ltd were sentenced after pleading guilty to health and safety offences arising from the deaths of Lee Horton and Daron Pickstock on 29 October 2020 at Castlefields Industrial Estate, Bingley. The court held that both companies had failed to take all reasonably practicable steps to protect those involved in the testing of a newly designed industrial racking system, with the result that two men lost their lives in what the judge described as an avoidable incident.

Matthew Howarth prosecuted the matter on behalf of the HSE and was instructed by Daniel Poole a Senior Enforcement Lawyer.

The First Defendant, Space Productiv Ltd, designs and produces industrial racking, had developed a new type of storage system for a customer and arranged for load testing to
be carried out at its premises. Collins Site Services Ltd, the Second Defendant, an experienced specialist contractor in the racking sector, had been engaged to build the structure for the testing process. On 29 October 2020, Lee Horton, the managing director of Space Productiv Ltd, and Daron Pickstock, a subcontractor working through Collins Site Services Ltd, were positioned in a mobile elevated work platform next to the structure while weights were being added. Andrew Collins, the director of Collins Site Services Ltd, was operating a reach truck nearby to place the test weights onto the racking.

The structure collapsed during the loading process, striking the mobile elevated work platform and causing it to fall to the ground. Mr Horton and Mr Pickstock sustained fatal
injuries and died the following day.

In the sentencing remarks, the court identified a number of serious failings in the planning and execution of the test. The racking had been erected on sloping ground and
was not level, yet adequate shims were not used to ensure that the structure was vertical before loading commenced. The court found that this created an imbalance in the load on the columns, contributing to buckling and collapse. The judge also found that the columns were inadequately restrained and that, despite the written planning documents referring to safe working areas and control measures, no effective safe zone or exclusion fall radius had in fact been created.

A central feature of the case was that the danger was already understood. The evidence showed that on 26 October 2020, during earlier testing, the mobile elevated work
platform had been positioned outside the fall radius so that operatives would not be exposed if the racking failed. The court therefore concluded that the relevant risks were known and appreciated before the fatal test took place three days later.

The judge further held that the written risk assessment, method statement and install phase plan were inadequate in important respects and were not properly implemented
in practice. Although those documents referred to the need for level ground, shims, and safe areas, the system of work actually adopted on 29 October 2020 placed workers
within the collapse zone of a heavy racking structure being loaded with weights running into tonnes. The court found that both companies should have appreciated that no one
should have been within falling distance of the structure during the loading process.

Importantly, the court held that safer and reasonably practicable alternatives were available. These included using digital cameras connected to computers at ground level outside the fall radius instead of taking readings from a position at height next to the racking, constructing a protective structure around the test area, and choosing a different test site that was not on a slope. The judge also observed that the loading and reading process could have been staged so that the mobile elevated work platform only approached the structure after each loading stage had been completed and stability checked.

For sentencing purposes, the court assessed both companies’ culpability as medium and placed the case in Harm Category 1 because the risked harm was death and the likelihood of that harm was high. The judge found that both companies, acting through experienced senior personnel on site, had failed to create and enforce a safe zone and
had thereby made a significant contribution to the fatal outcome.

Space Productiv Ltd, treated as a small company with an average turnover of £4.6 million, was fined a total of £97,500, divided as £48,750 on each of two counts, and ordered to pay costs of £17,377.72. Collins Site Services Ltd, treated as a micro organisation, was fined £60,000 on its single count and ordered to pay costs of £10,292.21. Both companies received 25% credit for their guilty pleas at the PTPH.

The judgment is a stark reminder that, in health and safety prosecutions, liability often turns not on a single mechanical failure but on the adequacy of planning, supervision,
and work systems. Here, the court’s analysis focused on the absence of a safe zone, the failure to ensure that the structure was level, and the decision to expose workers to the collapse radius of a test structure under load. The case underlines the importance of ensuring that written risk controls are not merely drafted, but are properly understood,
implemented, and maintained throughout high-risk testing operations.

Matthew Howarth is Panel B on the Attorney General Regulatory Panel. He prosecutes for the HSE and EA, as well as defends charges brought in both Environment Offending and Health and Safety offences.

Information can be read about this case on the HSE website: https://press.hse.gov.uk/2026/02/11/two-firms-fined-after-racking-collapse-killed-two-workers/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3v7ll1lq70o