SINGAPORE — A warehouse machine operator was sentenced to eight months' jail on Wednesday (Sept 18) over a fatal workplace incident in 2021.

Goh Boon Yoke, now aged 60, had used a machine to lift his supervisor Tay Hock Soon to a height to install some metal beams on storage racks. However, Tay later fell and died.

Tay's age was not disclosed in court documents.

Goh pleaded guilty on Wednesday to committing a reckless act that endangered a person under the Workplace Safety and Health Act.

Automotive and industrial product distributor YHI Corporation and its chief operating officer Ong Chin Kiong were fined last month over this case.

WHAT HAPPENED

Court documents showed that Goh had been employed by YHI Corporation since 1993. 

At the time of the incident, he was a warehouse operations supervisor and operated a very narrow aisle machine, working at the company's two-storey warehouse on Pandan Road near the West Coast Road area.

A very narrow aisle machine allows its user to pick up goods in high-density warehouses that have very narrow aisle spaces. 

The warehouse — which stored automotive tyres, rims and related products — had 32 rows of storage racks, which had a frame height of 12.3m. With items stacked on it, it can reach up to 13.4m.

Tay has been with the company since 1982 and was a warehouse operations executive who oversaw all aspects of the warehouse's operations and upkeep. He was in charge of Goh.

On July 3, 2021 at about 11am, Tay instructed Goh to help him install horizontal metal beams on one of the storage racks so that they may store more tyres.

These beams were about 3m long and weighed about 20kg each.

To do so, Goh operated the aisle machine while Tay stood on a wooden pallet on the machine's forks. Tay held onto a metal beam and Goh lifted them up with the machine.

Tay then stepped onto the existing metal beams and Goh followed by getting out of the machine cabin to help Tay install the metal beam.

Both did not use or wear any safety equipment.

The men used this method of reaching the storage racks twice with no problem.

However, on the third time, as Tay was entering the storage rack space, the metal beam that he was holding hit a wooden pallet and dislodged several tyres that were stored on the racks.

Along with the tyres, Tay fell from about 10m.

He was taken to a hospital by an ambulance where he later died.

IGNORED WARNING LABELS ON MACHINE

The Ministry of Manpower's prosecutor Kimberly Boo told the court that Goh had been reckless in lifting the victim since there were several labels on the machine he was operating that warned against using it to ferry people.

She called for a jail term of 9.5 months to 11 months, noting that Goh had been well aware his actions "deviated from established procedure".

She added that before this case, Goh had used the machine to lift someone who was standing in a metal cage on the machine's forks. The duo had done so to clear cobwebs in the warehouse.

This, Ms Boo told the court, showed a "pattern of behaviour... to disregard safety".

Goh's lawyer pleaded for the court to show compassion and leniency for his client.

Mr Kumaravelu Sinniah of Kumaravelu Law LLC said that this was Goh's first offence and he had cooperated with the authorities throughout investigations.

The lawyer added that Goh is helping to care for his parent-in-laws who are in their 80s and that the investigations and court proceedings have put him under high mental stress.

Although Mr Kumaravelu said that Goh had been following instructions from Tay, Ms Boo said that Goh held a supervisory role as his job title of warehouse operations supervisor indicated.

District Judge Lim Tse Haw said that although he empathised that Goh had worked under the instruction of Tay, "workplace safety has to be paramount".

"The buck most stop with (Goh)," the judge added.

For the offence, Goh could have been jailed up to two years or fined up to S$200,000, or both.