AN ENGINEERING and construction company has been fined £250,000 after an employee was killed by a reversing lorry.

The incident happened in April 2008 during work to widen the M25 near Dartford.

Richard Caddock, 38, from Bexleyheath, was talking on a mobile phone and could not hear the approaching truck above the noise of nearby motorway traffic, when he was hit from behind.

On March 20 The Health and Safety Executive prosecuted his employer, Costain Limited, for failing to ensure adequate precautions were in place to separate the movements of people and vehicles.

Maidstone Crown Court heard Mr Caddock had left a parked van and was walking northbound along a section of the central reservation closed off as part of a £65m scheme to ease congestion between junctions 1b to 3.

As he talked on the phone, an eight wheeled tipper lorry delivering crushed stone entered the same section and reversed northbound.

Mr Caddock had walked around 30m when the truck hit him.

The surveyor sustained multiple injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.

HSE Inspector Melvyn Stancliffe said: "This was a terrible tragedy that could easily have been avoided had Costain Limited implemented basic safety precautions.

"Mr Caddock may have been distracted on the phone, but the drone of nearby traffic was such that he would have struggled to hear the reversing alarm on the lorry regardless.

"Quite simply the two should never have been allowed to be in the same place at the same time."

He added: "The movement of people and vehicles on construction sites requires careful planning and effective control.

"It must be considered a critical part of transport management. This case highlights that a failure to be in control can have devastating consequences."

Costain Limited, of Vanwall Business Park in Maidenhead, pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

In addition to the £250,000 fine, the company was ordered to pay £45,000 in costs.