A court in the United Kingdom is scheduled on Aug. 17 to hear a government agency’s prosecution of the manager of the Sellafield nuclear site over a 2017 worker accident.
On July 20, the Workington Magistrates Court directed the case to the Carlisle Crown Court, according to a notice from the U.K.’s Office of Nuclear Regulation.
The office in May announced the planned prosecution of Sellafield Ltd. for breaching a workplace health and safety law from 1974. The act says “It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees.”
The prosecution was based on a February 2017 incident in which a Sellafield Ltd. employee was contaminated while working at a facility used for handling of special nuclear materials. The London Guardian reported in May that an equipment-related injury had left the employee vulnerable to internal radiation exposure.
Sellafield Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.K.’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. It oversees nuclear cleanup and spent fuel reprocessing operations at Sellafield, in Cumbria. The firm did not offer a plea at last week’s hearing, according to the Office of Nuclear Regulation.
If convicted, Sellafield Ltd. could face a fine in excess of £700,000, the Guardian reported.
