Company prosecuted after worker suffers electric shock

Date:

26 April 2012

Release No:

HSE-E-80

A coating and treatment company with premises in Swavesey, Cambridgeshire has been fined for safety failings after an employee suffered an electric shock.

Derek Offord, 45, from Sawston, was working as a machine operator at Tecvac's plant at the Buckingway Business Park when the incident occurred on 28 July last year.

The machine Mr Offord was working on when he received an electric shock

He received an electric shock whilst checking new cables on a hardening machine that had recently been maintained, sustaining open wounds to his forearm and left palm and burns to his left arm and knee. He was hospitalised for 12 days and was unable to return to work for four months as a result.

Cambridge Magistrates' Court heard today (26 April) that an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that Tecvac had failed to impose adequate safe working procedures relating to the operation, use and maintenance of an electrical system and work near an electrical system.

Tecvac Limited, registered to an address at Lodge Bank Works, Lord Street, Bury, Lancashire, admitted breaching Regulation 4(3) of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 in relation to the incident. The company was fined £3,500 and ordered to pay £5,382.70 in costs.

After the hearing, HSE Inspector Alison Ashworth, said:

"Work with or near electricity is dangerous. This incident could have been prevented if the company had identified the risk and acted to control it. They could have prevented access to the live parts of the cables, insulated them or ensured that stored electrical energy had been discharged.

"HSE will not hesitate to take action where there is the risk of serious harm to people at work."

Further information about working safely with electricity and electrical appliances can be found online at www.hse.gov.uk/electricity

Notes to editors

1. Regulation 4(3) of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 states: "Every work activity, including operation, use and maintenance of a system and work near a system, shall be carried out in such a manner as not to give rise, so far as is reasonably practicable, to danger."
2. 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

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Issued on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive by the Regional News Network