Brian Piper death: Campbelltown Hardware, Muhammad Khalid convicted

When a truckie rose early to begin his shift, he expected to come home. But “insufficient” safety measures resulted in the family man being crushed to death.

In the lead up to Christmas 2017, Brian Piper rose early to begin his shift as a truck driver for a logistics company.

About 5:30am the father arrived at a St Marys site where his truck was “overloaded” with packs of timber, each pack weighing up to 800kg, the court heard.

He then travelled to a timber yard at Rose St, Campbelltown to deliver the product.

It was a site he had never been to before, and parked the truck so a forklift operator could remove the timber.

The court heard the forklift operator, who hadn’t told Mr Piper where to stand or knew where he was standing, got to work and then he heard a “bang”.

The forklift operator saw his co-workers run to the far side of the truck and when he arrived he saw Mr Piper on the ground bleeding from the head as a result of two packs of timber falling from the truck, the court heard.

As a result of the injuries, the man died from cardiac arrest.

The company Campbelltown Hardware Pty Ltd, which operated the Rose St timber yard, and managing director Muhammad Jawad Khalid pleaded guilty in the District Court for failing to comply with the health and safety duty.

Generic picture of stacked timber

The court heard the business had no documented process or safe work procedure for unloading trucks at the site and had no formal system in place for reporting or assessing hazards. The court heard Khalid, as managing director, had also failed to make sure forklift operators had a ‘spotter’ available.

Judge Andrew Scotting, in delivering judgment, noted how Khalid had provided $13,000 in financial support to Mr Piper’s family and the business had significantly revamped its safety processes, including relocating the company to Smeaton Grange.

Khalid believes he had spent more than $170,000 on safety improvements to the business and gave evidence he experienced nightmares and overwhelming guilt as a result of the incident.

Judge Andrew Scotting said the informal system for unloading trucks was “insufficient”.

“The steps that could have been taken by Campbelltown and arranged by Mr Khalid, were simple, well known in the industry and could have been implemented quickly and at little cost,” she said.

The company was convicted and fined $75,000. Khalid was convicted and placed on a two-year court order to not commit any work health and safety offences.