Work accident sees pork producer fined £16,000

A pork producer has appeared in court and been fined £16,000 after one of its employees suffered a work accident.

Tulip Ltd, of Warwick, admitted in Grantham Magistrates Court that it had breached Regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

It was then fined and instructed to pay £4,076 in costs.

The work accident occurred at the firm’s Ruskington factory on December 10th 2009, when an employee, who has not been named, attempted to take a piece of blue plastic out of a mixing bowl.

This individual lost two fingers and damaged another on his right hand as the mixing machine was not guarded.

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector Dr David Lefever said: “This incident was entirely foreseeable and easily preventable. The risk could have been removed at no cost to the company by removing the access steps and only using the machine for tasks that did not require feeding from the top.”

According to the Labour Force Survey, in 2009/2010 there were 233,000 reportable injuries in the workplace.

Published by Hannah Carr