Two companies have today pleaded not guilty to health and safety offences following an accident that left a worker seriously injured at a nuclear construction site.
Bouygues Travaux Publics SAS and Laing O’Rourke Delivery Limited each face a single charge of failing to plan, manage and monitor construction work without risks to health and safety.
The two companies appeared at Bristol Magistrates Court this afternoon for a prosecution instigated by the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), the UK’s independent nuclear regulator.
It relates to an incident at Hinkley Point C (HPC) near Bridgwater, Somerset, on 20 August, 2022.
An employee, Paul Dunne, who worked for BYLOR Services Ltd, as a slinger, sustained serious injuries in a pre-fabrication yard when a wall of rebar mesh fell upon him as he was working to remove the wall from a vertical jig to be transferred to another part of the site.
Today, Bouygues Travaux Publics SAS and Laing O’Rourke Delivery Limited entered not guilty pleas to failing to plan, manage and monitor to ensure that construction work was carried out without risks to health and safety, contravening Regulation 15(2) of the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015.
The two contractors are the joint venture partners in BYLOR JV, delivering the main civil engineering works at Hinkley Point C (HPC) in Somerset.
This matter will now progress to trial and the case was adjourned until 30 January, 2026, at Bristol Crown Court for a pre-trial review hearing.
The decision to begin legal proceedings followed an investigation into the incident by ONR.
No further comment can be made at this time due to the live legal proceedings.