Shell fined £1m after worker's feet crushed at sea

The incident took place on a Shell oil rig off the East Anglian coast

Oil giant Shell has been fined more than £1m after an offshore worker's feet were crushed on a gangway.

Martin Hill, from Norwich, got his feet trapped under a sliding step while working on an oil rig in the North Sea in October 2017.

He had been transferring between the Shell-operated Galleon installation and the Kroonborg vessel off the East Anglian coast.

Shell, along with Ampelmann Operations which owned the gangway, were sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court after admitting breaches of health and safety legislation.

Martin Hill's boot remained under the gangway after his feet became trapped

Grandfather-of-eight Mr Hill, 68, had been working in conditions of "high winds and heavy seas", the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), prosecuting, said.

It meant the gangway would have been shifting more frequently than usual to adapt to the distance between the ship and the rig.

HSE said crew members should not have been using the gangway in the circumstances.

Mr Hill, who had to be airlifted to hospital, said the incident left him struggling to walk.

"My right foot seemed to get stuck, then my left foot. I was in extreme pain and then I think I just passed out. When I came round I was screaming for help," he said in a statement read out in court.

Mr Hill said he had been left struggling to walk following the incident

During the hearing, prosecutor Pascal Bates said there was insufficient lighting on the gangway.

He said the gap between a sliding step and the fixed part of the gangway was large enough to trap the steel toecap of a regular sized boot.

HSE said Ampelmann failed to take all reasonably practicable steps to reduce the risk of trapping.

Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson said though some efforts were made, "there were some basic errors which persisted over a long time".

He said Shell's instructions to staff conducting transfers "were inconsistent and confusing and spread across several documents".

Shell UK Limited, of York Road, Lambeth, London, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act. It was fined £1,031,250.

Ampelmann Operations (UK), of Waterloo Quay, Aberdeen, admitted the same charge and was fined £206,250.

Both were ordered to pay costs of £247,000.