123,000GBP penalty after worker severs thumb in machinery (10 November 2016)

The Health and Safety Executive has prosecuted a packaging company, after a worker’s thumb was severed due to the company’s failure to take adequate measures to prevent access to dangerous parts of machinery.

An HSE investigation found that the worker had reached through an unguarded section in the frame of one of the machines to clean ink from a roller. The rag he was using got caught in one of the motorised cogs, causing his hand to be pulled into the rotating cogs.

The worker’s left thumb was severed, resulting in him receiving skin grafts in hospital and being unable to work for 15 weeks.

Although the company had partially guarded the rollers and cogs of the machine with an interlocked guard, they failed to take adequate measures to prevent access to all dangerous parts of machinery.

The HSE investigation found the company’s risk assessment had been written nine years earlier by an employee untrained in creating risk assessments – the assessment did not identify risks related to unguarded machinery or any control measures.

The company had also previously been served with several HSE Improvement Notices highlighting machinery guarding issues.

At Liverpool Crown Court on Friday 4 November, Jiffy Packaging Company Limited of Road Four, Winsford, Cheshire – which produces packaging for the food industry and stationery products – was found guilty of breaching Section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at work etc Act 1974.

The company was fined £70,000 with full costs of £53,509.

After the hearing, HSE inspector Adam McMahon said:

“The employee’s life changing injuries could have been prevented if a suitable and sufficient risk assessment had been completed and the correct control measures implemented.

“The day after the accident the company carried out a new risk assessment of the machine guarded the area in which the employee reached through with a clear plastic screen.

“The company followed this up with a written safe system of work relating to cleaning the rollers.”

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