Drinks firm can continue serving after hearing over healthy and safety breach

A drinks manufacturer has been allowed to keep serving alcohol in its Glasgow offices, after appearing before licensing chiefs over a health and safety breach which left a worker with severe burns.

While repairing a defective pump at Diageo’s Glenlossie distillery in Elgin, a mechanical engineer was burned when boiling liquid was unexpectedly released from a pipe.

The firm was fined £500,000 over the incident, which took place in March 2021, after pleading guilty to breaches of the Health and Safety at Work act late last year.

It was called before Glasgow’s licensing board on Friday for a review of the premises licence it holds for offices in the Onyx Building on Bothwell Street.

The licence allows the firm to operate a bar area for staff functions in the office and a small retail area for workers and authorised visitors. There is no public access.

Councillors decided to take no action. Committee chair Margaret Morgan, SNP, said the grounds for review were not established.

Board members had to consider whether they had any concerns in relation to the licensing objectives of “preventing crime and disorder and securing public safety”.

A legal representative for Diageo said: “As was said at the criminal trial, and we say again today, it’s a matter of deep regret that this incident occurred and the employee was injured.”

He added: “The nature of the offence, where it occurred was in an operational unit, is such that it doesn’t have any bearing on the manner in which… the office premises in Glasgow, operate.

“This is a health and safety breach of a major nature but one which was very specific in context and doesn’t translate to the office context.

“The health and safety of employees working in their establishments is of paramount importance. Whether that is an operational distillery or an office premises.”

The worker sustained burns to his arms, hands, shoulders, back, chest, lower legs and ankles, and spent two weeks in intensive care where he was placed in an induced coma.

A Health and Safety Executive investigation found Diageo failed to do all that was reasonably practicable to ensure maintenance operations could be carried out without a worker being put at risk of injury.

The licensing board heard a pump had been “incorrectly configured” so “when it was showing to be on, it was off, and vice versa”. The company accepted it “failed to take appropriate measures to maintain the plant in relation to this pump”.

Diageo’s brands include Johnnie Walker, Lagavulin, Talisker and Bell’s as well major names like Guinness and Smirnoff.