factory blunder

Report by NICK SMITH

A FACTORY worker's foot was crushed in a machine left faulty for over a month.

Bathroom goods firm Ideal Standard was fined £9,000 after admitting the offence last Wednesday.

Representatives from the firm's Middlewich site pleaded guilty to a breach of the 1974 Health and Safety Act, failing to do everything reasonably practical to ensure safety at work.

The accident occurred at the company's Cledford Lane warehouse on January 6, as Carl Speake placed a roll of polythene film on a shrink-wrap machine.

When he climbed onto the machine to replace the roll manually, his foot became trapped in a gap created by two missing conveyor belt rollers.

Crewe Magistrates were told the rollers had been missing since the start of December.

Janet Hanson, prosecuting on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive, said: "The employee's left foot fell through a gap of 7.2 centimetres, caused by two missing rollers, and his left foot became crushed between the bars and framework of the machine.

"At the time of the incident safety shoes were being worn and this reduced the severity of the injuries.

"Health and safety legislation has been passed to protect those at work and the prosecution says that it was not doing so in this case."

Defending, Lucy Powys said: "Injuries were to soft tissue of the foot only, because appropriate safety footwear had been provided. A full recovery has been made from these injuries.

"The defendant does not accept it was customary practice for employees to stand on moving rollers.

"The Health and Safety Executive had evidence that this happened. But it was not a practice known to management or condoned by them."

The court also heard that faults to the machine which caused the accident had since been repaired.

Magistrates expressed great concern that the machine had been faulty for six weeks and felt there could have been a serious accident.

Representatives from the company agreed to pay the fine and £856 costs within 28 days.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.