Firms Fined Over Fatal Gas Blast

The operators of a plastics factory where nine people were killed in a gas explosion have been fined a total of £400,000.

ICL Plastics and ICL Tech were handed the financial penalties at the High Court in Glasgow.

The firms admitted four charges under the Health and Safety at Work Act over the blast which killed nine people – five men and four women – and injured 33 in the city on May 11, 2004.

Imposing the fines, trial judge Lord Brodie said the sums involved were not meant to equate to the lives lost or the injuries and suffering caused.

“These are not things that are capable of being expressed in terms of sums of money,” he said.

More than 30 relatives sat silently in court as the judge passed sentence.

The charges, which the two companies admitted, alleged that between 1993 and May 2004 they failed to ensure there was no risk to employees from pipework at the factory.

The judge told the gathered relatives: “That it was a tragedy is beyond question.

“Nine people were killed, 33 people were injured, many of those people were very seriously injured indeed.

“Seventeen, while not physically injured, were placed at risk of death.

“That summary takes no account of the psychological impact of the event, both on the survivors and the families of those killed and families of those that were injured.”

The firms said in a statement read outside court that they would welcome any inquiry into the accident to establish the facts relating to the tragedy.

A memorial garden has been created in honour of those who lost their lives in the blast.