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A bank in Birmingham had to pay a compensation of 4,000 pounds to an employee inadvertently caught in the midst of a burglary.

The two robbers, armed with guns entered the Lloyds TSB Bank in Birmingham by breaking a ground floor window. They held all the workers at gunpoint, and looted the bank of an undisclosed amount. One of the bank’s employees who had been present in the scene suffered severe psychological trauma during the incident, though the robbers had not physically harmed her.

The distressed employee contacted her workers’ union, which handed the case to Thompson Solicitors and asked them to sue the bank for compensation. Thompsons Solicitors pointed out to the court that a security report had been presented to the bank following an earlier robbery, which had given the bank a high-risk rating and had clearly detailed precautionary safety measures that could prevent such incidents. The report’s recommendations included fitting vertical metal bars across all windows. However, this was not fully carried out by the bank, and some of the windows on the ground floor were left untouched.

Mark Brown from the workers’ union of the bank expressed surprise that the branch had failed to come up with comprehensive security measures, even after the recommendations of the report. For training and support for organisations in attaining their health and safety objectives, click NEBOSH Training to learn about the importance of promoting a positive health and safety culture in the workplace environment and for information on the web-based training programme from Workplace Law leading to the award of the NEBOSH National General Certificate in Occupational Safety and Health.