A judge has said a Salisbury company should be “appalled” that it allowed its employees to implement an unsafe method of work, which “undoubtedly” led to the death of a migrant worker.

Joszef Trhan, 33, was working at C Bialek Ltd’s (trading as CB Skips) sorting yard in Salisbury, when the incident took place on 12 February 2008, which also happened to be his birthday and the same date that his father had died years earlier.
 
Mr Trhan had been employed to sort through waste at the site but he also carried out maintenance work on yard-based vehicles.

On the day of the incident he was attempting to repair the wheel of a loading shovel, which had a puncture.
 
Firstly, he removed the split-rim wheel and then repaired the puncture on the inner tube. When he tried to place the tube around the wheel rim the interlocking components of the rim fell apart. It had become common practice at the site to weld the two parts together rather than repair the lock clip, which was meant to hold them in place. But if the components are not secured exactly into place before the inner-tube is inflated, they can later separate, allowing the inner-tube to burst, which in turn causes a violent blast of compressed air to escape.

Once he had welded the parts together he inflated the inner tube and placed the wheel back on the vehicle. When he knelt down to tighten the wheel nuts, the welds suddenly failed and caused the inner-tube to rupture. The blast of compressed air propelled the metal components outwards, striking him in the head and body. The blast then launched him into the air and propelled him back five metres. He struck a similar vehicle headfirst, and suffered serious head injuries. He died later in hospital.

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