Scottish Power to appeal £1.75 million fine over Longannet scalding incident
It follows an incident back in 2013.
Scottish Power is to appeal the £1.75m fine it was handed over horrific steam burns suffered by a worker at Longannet Power Station.
The firm was given the massive penalty over serious health and safety failings at the Fife facility.
Plant controller David Roscoe suffered severe scalding injuries after being engulfed by steam which escaped from a defective pipeline valve at the coal-fired power plant in October 2013.
The company had known about the fault for more than four years but nothing was done to repair it, Dunfermline Sheriff Court heard.
Sheriff Charles MacNair fined Scottish Power £1.75m and slammed the company's safety procedures saying: "The system failed so woefully it cannot be described as a working system."
But now the energy company are to challenge that ruling, lodging an appeal at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh.
It is understood the appeal centres on the application of new English sentencing guidelines in health and safety cases.
A ScottishPower spokesperson said: "We fully accept responsibility for the incident and co-operated fully with the HSE investigation, implementing immediate changes to our procedures at Longannet.
"We also apologised unreservedly to Mr Roscoe for the distress caused by this accident, and we provided assistance following the incident.
"We have subsequently appealed against the level of the fine."