A young worker dislocated her elbow and broke three bones in her arm after it became caught between the conveyor belt and rollers of a potato-blanching machine in the Wigan factory of food-processing company Bakkavor Foods.
Trafford Magistrates’ Court was told on 21 October that the routine practice at the firm, which packages salads and fresh vegetables, had been to clean its machines at night when they were not in production but were, nevertheless, still running.
The court heard that on 28 June 2010, the 22-year-old hygiene worker, who wishes to remain anonymous, had been cleaning the rollers of the machine while they continued to spin round, and was injured because there was no guard in place.
The worker sustained serious injuries to her left arm, in which she required a metal plate to be inserted. She remained off work for eight months as a result of her injuries. However, when she returned to her cleaning duties she was so traumatised by the machinery that she soon left the firm.
Bakkavor Foods pleaded guilty to breaching reg.11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 by failing to prevent access to dangerous parts of machinery. It was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £2026 in full costs.
Helen Mansfield, the HSE inspector who investigated and prosecuted the case in court, said the company should have put more thought into the safety of its employees. She described the victim’s injuries as “almost inevitable”.
The inspector said: “A young worker has suffered a life-long injury that could easily have been prevented. Sadly, the machine had been operated without a guard for more than ten years, making it almost inevitable that someone would be injured if they came into contact with the dangerous moving parts.”
The company said in mitigation that it had taken corrective action and made improvements so that the incident could not happen again. It has now installed a simple mesh guard over the rollers, so that they can be cleaned without the risk of workers’ arms being dragged into the machine.
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