A haulage firm have been fined £12,000 after an employee suffered serious injuries after being crushed by a reversing lorry.

KBC Logisitics registered at Dartford Road, Dartford, were prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) after the incident in May.

Polish national Leslaw Chorazak, 54, worked as a driver at the firm and was guiding another driver who was reversing at the firm’s depot in Grays, Essex.

As he bent to pick up his torch, the driver lost sight of Mr Chorazak and reversed into him crushing his right arm, body and collar bone.

He spent several days in hospital and has now returned to Poland.

An investigation by the HSE found the depot was poorly lit, and had no means of seperating pedestrians and vehicles, no supervision on site or any health and safety training for staff.

KBC Logistics pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act at Basildon Magistrates’ Court yesterday.

They were fined £12,000 and also told to pay £3,009.80 in prosecution costs.

Speaking after the case, HSE Inspector Nicola Surrey said: "This was a small yard used by a large number of lorries which were often forced to reverse as there was no room to carry out a U-turn.

"It was common practice for employees to wander across the yard from the workshop or from where they parked their cars to the office, to and from the diesel tank and to where the lorries were parked making the yard an extremely dangerous environment.

"Working with moving vehicles is a high risk activity which causes significant numbers of major and fatal injuries every year in this country. Mr Chorazak was seriously injured in this incident and it was only good fortune that it did not end in a fatality."

Last year, 17 workers were killed and more than 530 suffered major injury after being hit by moving vehicles while at work in Great Britain.