The operators of a plastics factory where nine people were killed in a gas explosion have been fined a total of \u00c2\u00a3400,000.<\/p>\n
ICL Plastics and ICL Tech were handed the financial penalties at the High Court in Glasgow.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
“These are not things that are capable of being expressed in terms of sums of money,” he said.<\/p>\n
More than 30 relatives sat silently in court as the judge passed sentence.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The judge told the gathered relatives: “That it was a tragedy is beyond question.<\/p>\n
“Nine people were killed, 33 people were injured, many of those people were very seriously injured indeed.<\/p>\n
“Seventeen, while not physically injured, were placed at risk of death.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
A memorial garden has been created in honour of those who lost their lives in the blast.<\/p>\n
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