Refugee bosses escape jail in first industrial manslaughter case

Asadullah Hussaini, left, and Mohammad Ali Jan Karimi outside the District Court in Brisbane on Thursday. Picture: AAP
Asadullah Hussaini, left, and Mohammad Ali Jan Karimi outside the District Court in Brisbane on Thursday. Picture: AA

The owners of a Brisbane car-wrecking yard have been given suspended jail sentences and fined $3m in the country’s first industrial manslaughter prosecution.

Brisbane Auto Recycling was charged with industrial manslaughter as a corporate defendant under new Queensland laws after a 58-year-old casual worker was killed when a reversing forklift crushed him against a truck.

The company’s owners, Asa­dullah Hussaini, 25, and Mohammad Ali Jan Karimi, 23, were charged with reckless conduct for failing to exercise due diligence and engaging in conduct that ­exposed their employee to serious injury. Both men pleaded guilty.

They were sentenced to 10 months in prison, suspended for 20 months.

Barry James Willis was crushed against a truck on May 17 last year when a forklift driven by an unlicensed employee reversed into him. The father of four and grandfather of six died in hospital eight days later.

Willis, whose job was to collect cars and deliver them to the workplace, was unloading a van and tyres when he was hit.

The incident was captured on security cameras within the wrecking yard compound.

Karimi later lied to Willis’s daughter about how her father had sustained the injuries.

He event­ually gave her the footage after several days, and she notified the police.

Hussaini lied to investigators about the driver of the forklift and whether he was qualified.

Investigators found the workplace had no safety systems in place and no traffic management plan in the busy yard.

“Whether the inaction by the defendants was due to expedience for commercial gain or compla­cency or both, the moral culpabil­ity of each is high,” District Court judge Anthony Rafter said in his sentencing remarks<spantimes=”” new=”” roman”;=”” font-size:=”” 12pt;”=””>.</spantimes=””>

In an emotional victim impact statement, Willis’s daughter, Josephine Cleeland, said the family had struggled with his death.

“We were all robbed of a relationship so dear to each and every single one of us and we are all suffering because of it,” she said.

The maximum penalty for a company found guilty of indust­rial manslaughter is a $10m fine. A finding of reckless conduct can attract­ a five-year jail sentence.

Hussaini and Karimi, who fled violence in Afghanistan to become permanent residents of Australia, have wives and children living in their country of birth, awaiting visas. Neither had previous criminal convictions.

In handing down his sentence, Judge Rafter considered that the “clearly remorseful” men could be deported if they went to jail.

Queensland’s industrial manslaughter provisions were enacted in 2017. The amendments to the Work Health and Safety Act were designed to punish companies and senior management whose substandard conduct leads to death.