Archived press release
Date Published:
Joint statement from the Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency regarding the jury verdicts in the Buncefield trial
A jury at St Albans' Crown Court has found TAV Engineering Ltd guilty of failing to protect workers and members of the public following an investigation into the explosion and fire at Buncefield Oil Storage Depot on 11 December 2005.
Motherwell Control Systems 2003 Ltd was found guilty earlier this month of the same charge.
Hertfordshire Oil Storage Limited was also found guilty of failing to prevent major accidents and limit their effects. They also pleaded guilty to causing pollution to enter controlled waters underlying the vicinity around Buncefield.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and Environment Agency (EA) are the 'Competent Authority' responsible for regulating non-nuclear major hazardous industrial sites in the UK under the Control of Major Accident Hazard Regulations 1999 (COMAH).
As the competent authority, the HSE and EA have a responsibility to investigate major incidents and ensure that lessons are learned, and both said:
"This was the biggest and most complex criminal inquiry we have worked on together - the product of many hundreds of hours of painstaking forensic investigation.
"When companies put workers and members of the public at risk and cause environmental damage we will prosecute.
"When the largest fire in peacetime Europe tore through the Buncefield site on that Sunday morning in December 2005, these companies had failed to protect workers, members of the public and the environment.
"The scale of the explosion and fire at Buncefield was immense and it was miraculous that nobody died. Unless the high hazard industries truly learn the lessons, then we may not be that fortunate in future."
Sentencing is planned to take place on 16 July 2010 at St Albans Crown Court.