Richard Hoyle

Richard started his career in forensic engineering and consultancy in 1997.  He investigated a wide variety of cases including product liability, mechanical/materials failures, industrial incidents, road traffic incidents, incident reconstruction and tool-mark cases.  He has received instruction across the civil and criminal legal sectors and given evidence at all levels of Court throughout the UK and also in Eire, Northern Ireland and Bermuda.  During that time he gained a plethora of experience working with a number of agencies (police, insurance, loss adjusting, government forensic science laboratories) and other forensic disciplines.

In 2010 he moved into the engineering inspection and consultancy industry as an Engineer Surveyor working for an FTSE100 insurance company.  That arm of the business then became the UK and Eire’s largest independent engineering inspection provider where Richard also became a Business Unit Leader, responsible for managing clients and a team of Engineer Surveyors covering half of Scotland. During that time as a ‘Competent Person,’ he conducted ‘statutory thorough inspections’ within the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations (LOLER), Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations (PUWER) and Pressure Safety Systems Regulations (PSSR) framework.  His experience includes planning/preparation of inspections, auditing plant schedules and document/record management, as well as carrying out physical inspections of a range of plant and machinery such as wind turbines, mobile cranes/super-lifts, the UK’s largest goliath crane, passenger/goods lifts, lifting accessories, forklift trucks, mobile elevating work platforms, and garage equipment.  He also conducted statutory thorough inspections of pressure vessels, mainly on compressors/air receivers and associated components.

Richard also has twenty years’ service as a Commissioned Officer with the Army Reserve (Royal Engineers), where his training and application of military engineering (civil), mobility, counter-mobility and survivability has given him experience in kinetic operational theatre, peace support and infrastructure building missions, construction design and execution of tasks (overseas and the UK), asset management, training delivery and incident investigation.

Richard joined Finch in late 2018 bringing his experience to satisfy the growing demand for organisations wishing to aim high on machinery and employee safety.  His main effort is the prevention of incidents through learning, training and proactivity in building robust, but easy to manage, systems, in order to achieve this.