West Yorkshire firm fined over worker injury

Date:

8 September 2011

Release No:

Y&H/126/11

One of Huddersfield's oldest firms has been fined for breaching safety laws after a worker's fingers were partly severed by an unguarded block saw.

Shaw Pallet Ltd of Slaithwaite was prosecuted over the incident that saw a wood machine operator, who has asked not to be named, spend four days in hospital leading up to Christmas 2009 and needed to undergo skin grafts to heal his wounds.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted the firm over the 21 December incident.

Huddersfield Magistrates' Court heard yesterday (7 September) that the worker was on a late shift at the timber packaging company's Bridge Street site. He noticed sawdust leaking from two holes in a chute below the block saw. When he tried to tape over them his fingers got caught by the machine and the ends of two were severed.

Magistrates heard that Shaw Pallet Ltd had been served with an Improvement Notice in May 2006 when a HSE inspector found a circular saw with inadequate protection to prevent access to dangerous blades.

Shaw Pallet Ltd of Bridge Street, Slaithwaite, admitted breaching Section 2 (1) of the Health & Safety at Work etc Act 1974 by failing to ensure that plant and systems of work were safe for employees. The firm was fined £7,500 and ordered to pay £2,410 in costs.

After the hearing Inspector Jackie Ferguson commented:

"This incident was entirely preventable and caused by Shaw Pallet's failure to ensure robust systems were in place to prevent access to dangerous moving parts of the block saw. That failure was made worse by the fact that we had taken action for an almost identical breach before.

"The woodworking industry has one of the highest injury rates in manufacturing, most of which are caused by contact with moving machinery. This accounted for a quarter of all major injuries and one of last year's two deaths in this sector.

"HSE will not hesitate to take enforcement action against those that fall so far below the required standard."

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."

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