Firms face charges over depot fire

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The Health and Safety Executive and the Environment Agency are bringing the prosecution following the explosion at the storage depot.

The December 2005 explosion was the result of a spillage of 300 tonnes of petrol from the top of one of the tanks at the site in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.

It formed a huge vapour cloud which ignited, causing widespread damage and injuring 43 people. Widely thought to be the largest ever in peacetime Europe, the explosion measured 2.4 on the Richter scale and could be heard 125 miles away.

Total UK, Hertfordshire Oil Storage, British Pipeline Agency, TAV Engineering and Motherwell Control Systems 2003 will face charges at West Hertfordshire Magistrates' Court in Watford.

The prosecutions were announced in December following a "thorough and complex" criminal investigation conducted by the two agencies, which are jointly responsible for regulating non-nuclear hazardous industrial sites in the UK.

The hearing had originally been scheduled for January but was adjourned.

In March, the question of liability was decided at the High Court, with Mr Justice David Steel ruling that Total should pay the property damage bills of individual and business claimants - the vast majority of whom were insured. The claims arising from the incident totalled more than £750 million, said the judge.

At the hearing, Total UK will face three charges, of failing to ensure the safety of its employees, of failing to ensure the safety of people it did not employ, and of polluting ground water with fuel and firewater chemicals. Hertfordshire Oil Storage and British Pipeline Agency are both charged with failing to take all the measures necessary to prevent a major accident and with polluting groundwater with fuel and firewater chemicals.

TAV Engineering is facing one charge of failing to ensure its employees were not exposed to health and safety risks, while Motherwell Control Systems faces one charge of failing to ensure people it did not employ were not put at risk.