Farm worker injured and Directors fined

Directors of a Farming company, David and Philip Leverton were fined £5000 each plus costs of £892.10 on 21 May 2018 at Lincoln Magistrates Court, as a farm worker was injured. The employee’s arm was drawn into the rollers of a potato grading machine and caused serious injuries.

HSE Inspectors identified that the machine was not guarded, breaching both Regulation 3 (1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and Regulation 11 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

The farm worker injured had his gloves caught by the unguarded rollers, which could have been easily prevented by having an effective risk management procedure in place.

Commenting on this case, Himmat Rai Managing Director of Sentinel Safety Solutions Ltd said “Dreadful accidents like these can be easily prevented by carrying out effective risk assessments and ensuring that dangerous parts of machinery are suitably guarded. On machines of this type, a machine assessment should be carried out to identify the range of hazards arising from the use, maintenance and cleaning of machinery. This should then enable proportionate risk controls to be put in place.”

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