A Health trust has been fined £20,000 after a Warley Hospital patient was killed by a reversing lorry.

Pensioner Albert Walters, 72, died minutes after the lorry, carrying prepared food, crushed him in the grounds of the Brentwood Hospital.

Barking, Havering and Brentwood Community Health Care NHS Trust admitted failing to ensure non-employees were not exposed to safety risks.

The trust was prosecuted under section three of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

Inspector, Brian Anfield, told Basildon magistrates several serious errors had been made by the BHB trust.

When the accident happened in January last year, there were six new halfway houses at the edge of the hospital grounds.

Mr Anfield said the 200 metre road was narrow and its grass verges became muddy because vehicles drove over them. Psychiatric patient Mr Walters, who was deaf and used a walking stick, was one of 40 patients who had been moved to the new houses.

Defence counsel for BHB, Anthony Cherry, said the trust had already begun a risk assessment exercise when the accident happened but it had not reached the area of site safety.

BHB inherited "a site of neglect" from the Secretary of State in 1993, said Mr Cherry, as the hospital had been earmarked for closure for some time.

The trust has now carried out its own internal report into site safety and implemented an action plan, including spending more than £70,000 on paths, traffic calming measures and speed barriers.

BHB was fined the maximum amount it could be by a magistrates court and was ordered to pay £1,363 legal costs.

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