A construction company has been fined £175,000 after one of its employees was fatally crushed by a heavy piece of machinery.

Liam McArdle, from Gravesend, died on September 21, 2021, after being hit by a lifting attachment that detached from an excavator and rolled off the back of a trailer.

The fatal crush happened at Erith Plant Services Limited’s workshop in Ebbsfleet’s Eastern Quarry in Watling Street, Swanscombe, the site of a major garden city homes development.

Liam had been helping colleagues operating heavy machinery with loading and unloading work when the demolition grab fell onto him.

Paramedics and police were called but the 24-year-old was pronounced dead at the scene.

At an inquest held into the yard man’s death in 2022 a jury returned a verdict of accidental death and a coroner gave a medical cause of death as "multiple injuries".

A prosecution for safety failings was subsequently brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) following an investigation.

It found his employer had failed to ensure there was a safe method of work while loading and unloading excavators and attachments.

The company also failed to make sure steps were taken to ensure HGV drivers fully engaged the quick hitch when moving attachments during loading and unloading activities.

There was also no defined segregation between vehicles and pedestrians at the firm’s Eastern Quarry workshop, or suitable supervision of work activities.

Erith Plant Services Limited, of Queen Street, Erith, pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 at Woolwich Crown Court last Wednesday (March 27).

The plant hire firm was fined £175,000 and ordered to pay £37,804 in costs.

Following the conclusion of the case, Liam’s dad Declan McArdle spoke of the impact on him after losing his son.

In his victim personal statement, he said: “The pain of losing my son has been and will continue to be unbearable.

“Liam worked hard and wanted to learn. He wanted to follow in my footsteps, and I was proud of the person he was becoming.

“Liam and I enjoyed spending time together. We would go on truck rallies and to car racing events together.

“Liam would never really say: ‘I love you, dad.’ It just wasn’t his way.

“Rather, he would ask me to go to a racing event with him and I knew that this was Liam’s way of saying he loved me.

“Liam and I were planning on going to a racing event in February 2022. I went to the event, and I took Liam’s ashes with me so that we could still go together.”

Following his inquest in March 2022, Liam’s girlfriend Kylie Barden also paid tribute to her “kind-hearted” partner.

"He was such a kind-hearted person, he always had time for anyone," she said. "If I had had a bad day he would often surprise me."

"I loved him and I would do anything to have him back."

HSE inspector Joanne Williams said: “This tragic death serves as an important reminder that workers need to be trained and that there is always the potential for an attachment to fall during the operation of excavators.

“Employers need to ensure that work practices are maintained to keep workers away from the danger areas during lifting activities.”