Disregarded safety warnings cost Bolton firm

Date:

9 September 2011

Release No:

HSE/NW/27SmithBarrett

The owners of a Bolton packaging manufacturer have been sentenced for deliberately ignoring formal safety warnings for more than three years.

Company directors Anthony Smith and Yvonne Barrett were prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for failing to install guards on machines used to produce packaging for fast food outlets.

Trafford Magistrates' Court heard the machines removed paper from the ends of giant rolls used by the newspaper industry. But no guards were provided to prevent workers' hands being pulled in by the rotating machinery.

HSE issued First Packaging Ltd with an Improvement Notice on 14 January 2008 ordering guards to be installed on the machines at its factory at Wadsworth Industrial Estate in Bolton.

The company was given a six month extension on the deadline to comply with the notice but when the site was revisited in August 2008, the guards had still not been installed. HSE inspectors were told the factory would be closing, so no further action was taken.

In early 2010, HSE discovered that, instead of closing, First Packaging had actually moved to new premises on the West Industrial Estate in Westhoughton and was still using the same unguarded machines. It issued two Prohibition Notices stopping work immediately and another four Improvement Notices.

Later that year, First Packaging Ltd stopped trading and Anthony Smith set up a new company called First Packaging North West Ltd at Pilot Works in Bolton. Again, HSE found Mr Smith had still not had guards fitted to the machines and issued another five Improvement Notices in February 2011.

Anthony Smith and Yvonne Barrett both pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 by not preventing workers being put at risk at the Westhoughton site, and failing to comply with the Improvement Notice issued at the Wadsworth site.

Mr Smith, of Rayden Crescent, Daisy Hill, Westhoughton, also admitted failing to ensure the safety of workers at the Pilot Works site. He was fined £705 and ordered to pay £2,500 in prosecution costs on 9 September 2011. Mrs Barrett, of the same address, was fined £360 with costs of £1,500.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE Inspector Alex Farnhill said:

"The two directors deliberately set out to avoid complying with the legal warnings we issued, allowing their employees to continue to operate dangerous machinery.

"The risk of workers' hands being pulled into unguarded moving machine parts and belt drives is well known in the manufacturing industry. It's only luck that none of Mr Smith and Mrs Barrett's employees were injured in this case.

"It beggars belief that they chose to put workers at risk of serious injury after enforcement notices had been served, deciding to put profit over the safety of their employees.

"We had no choice but to prosecute when they continued to deliberately and flagrantly ignore the formal warnings."

More than 3.2 million people are employed in the manufacturing industry in Great Britain. Last year, 25 workers lost their lives and there were more than 4,000 major injuries in the sector. Details on preventing injuries are available at www.hse.gov.uk/manufacturing.

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. www.hse.gov.uk
2. Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states: "It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees."
3. Section 33(1)(g) of the Act states: "It is an offence for a person to contravene any requirement or prohibition imposed by an improvement notice or a prohibition notice (including any such notice as modified on appeal)."

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