A Wembley firm has been heavily fined after a worker was crushed and left paralysed during an accident caused by an unsafe goods lift.

KSB Design Ltd in Water Road, was ordered to pay £20,000 following the accident involving a 24-year-old man who is now disabled and in a wheelchair.

Brent Magistrates’ Court heard the unnamed employee was unloading a trolley containing sheets of laminated glass off the safe onto the mezzanine level.

However because the lift was not levelled with the floor the trolley rolled backwards and crushed him.

Following an investigation by Brent Council’s health and safety team the kitchen and bathroom company was prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998.

The court heard the company had failed in its legal duty as an employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of its employee.

It also failed to ensure that the lifting operations were being carried out in a safe manner by a competent person and the worker was not appropriately supervised.

The firm was fined £10,000 per offence and also ordered to pay prosecution costs of £4664.32 to Brent Council.

Sue Emery, service manager for Brent’s Council’s health and safety team, said: “It is always the responsibility of a company to make sure that people working and/or visiting its premises are able to do so safely; employers cannot delegate this responsibility to others.

“This accident, and many others, could be easily avoided by undertaking simple risk assessments and implementing them, and ensuring that all work equipment is maintained in a safe condition and that employees are given suitable information on their safe operation”.