Playground firm fined after North Yorkshire worker hurt

Date:

10 May 2011

Release No:

Y&H/74/11

An international play equipment manufacturer has been sentenced after one of its workers severed four fingers using a circular saw.

Selby resident Allan Davis suffered severe injuries to his right hand while working for Record RSS, a subsidiary of Playpower UK Ltd, part of one of the world's leading recreational equipment makers.

The machine which caused Mr Davis' injuries

Selby Magistrates' Court heard Mr Davis, 55, had been working for 20 years for Record RSS, when the incident happened at its premises in the Shipyard Industrial Estate in Selby last June.

He was using a circular saw to cut discs used for playground mini-roundabouts when the saw 'kicked back' pulling his hand across the blade.

Mr Davis, had fixed a disc to the worktable but as the blade came into contact with the disc, it kicked back and pulled both the disc and his hand across the rear of the blade. Doctors later had to amputate all four fingers above the first knuckle.

Playpower UK Ltd of Tenacre Lane, Egham, Surrey, admitted breaching Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. It was fined £4,700 and ordered to pay £2,382.40 in costs.

The machine which caused Mr Davis' injuries

Inspector Geoff Fletcher of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which brought the prosecution, said:

"Mr Davis suffered a severe injury in a completely preventable incident. The method adopted for trimming the discs was inherently unsafe as the machine used was not designed for such work and the training was inadequate.

"The company's failure to provide a safe system of work is a serious offence. The absence of a proper procedure for making the discs meant an improvised and dangerous way of working had developed over time without assessment and any managerial oversight or supervision."

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 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 states that: '...It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety...'

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