Bradford motor parts firm fined after worker injured

Date:

7 June 2010

Release No:

YH/170/10

A Bradford company manufacturing precision parts for the motor industry was prosecuted for failing to safeguard a machine that severed the tip of an employee's finger.

Bradford Magistrates Court heard how on 10 March 2009, employee Allan Formoy, 57, from Bradford used his finger to free a mechanical jam in a machine used to feed metal pins onto a grinding line at Federal Mogul Bradford Ltd's premises on Neville Road in the city.

Mr Formoy's finger became trapped in the machinery and the tip was severed.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found control measures to prevent such an incident at the firm, part of global engineering giant Federal Mogul Corporation, were not in place.

Federal Mogul pleaded guilty to two health and safety breaches. Regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 and Regulation 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. The company was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £5,000 costs.

Following the hearing, HSE Inspector Morag Irwin said: "A suitable and sufficient risk assessment would have identified the need for control measures, the most obvious being guarding, to prevent access to the step feeder.

"Fitting guards is not a costly, time-consuming or difficult task, and had they been in place this incident would not have occurred and a painful injury could have been avoided.

"This case demonstrates the value in spending the time to do a suitable risk assessment, identify the control measures required and act upon these findings".

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement.
2. Section 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 states: "Every employer shall ensure that measures are taken which are effective (a) to prevent access to any dangerous part of machinery or to any rotating stock-bar; or (b) to stop the movement of any dangerous part of machinery or rotating stock-bar before any part of a person enters a danger zone."
3. Section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 states: "Every employer shall make a suitable and sufficient assessment of - (a) the risks to the health and safety of his employees to which they are exposed whilst they are at work; and (b) the risks to the health and safety of persons not in his employment arising out of or in connection with the conduct by him of his undertaking."
4. HSE information and news releases can be accessed on the Internet: www.hse.gov.uk

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