The tragic death of 22-year-old diver Jarrod Hampton has seen Paspaley Pearls fined $60,000 for failing to provide and maintain a safe work environment.
The judgement comes after a two-year investigation conducted by Worksafe WA.
Mr Hampton, from Melbourne, died during his second day on the job, working as a drift diver for Paspaley at Eighty Mile Beach, south of Broome, on 14 April 2012.
Though the experienced and qualified scuba diver had received training, it was his first time collecting pearls from the sea floor.
While Mr Hampton had completed nine dives successfully on the first day, the following day saw him surface prematurely on the eighth dive and disappear below the water.
When he was rescued and brought back on board, he was found to be unconscious and could not be resuscitated.
According to Worksafe, at the time of the diver’s death, the company did not have a written emergency procedure for rescuing divers, and emergency drills had not been practiced by the crew.
Charged in July 2014 with breaching the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984, on Monday, Paspaley pleaded guilty and was fined $60,000, along with an additional $5,000 in court costs.
The Worksafe prosecution is the primary reason that a coronial inquest is yet to be scheduled, more than three years after Mr Hampton’s death.
In a statement reported by ABC News, Jarrod’s father Tony said his family’s lack of knowledge about his son’s death had had “a significant impact on our wellbeing”.
“We have been completely kept in the dark,” he said. “We have had no access to any part of the investigation process.”
In a statement released after the sentencing, Lex McCulloch, commissioner of Worksafe WA, said that employers of divers needed an effective plan to identify divers in trouble and to retrieve them in an emergency.
“Working underwater is a high-risk operation with potentially fatal consequences if anything goes wrong,” McCulloch said.
Source: The Guardian