Food business fined £370,000
A food business has to pay nearly £380,000 after a worker’s hand was crushed in a meat separating machine.
Becketts Foods pleaded guilty at Coventry Magistrates’ Court to breaching health and safety laws after the incident that left a 22-year-old worker requiring surgery and skin grafts.
On May 11 last year the worker at the company’s Moat House site in Coventry was loading meat into the machine, when he fell and his hand entered the machine.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the company failed to implement a safe system of work for separating the meat using this machinery, and the equipment didn’t have the appropriate level of guarding.
“This case highlights the dangers of failing to assess risk,” said HSE inspector Christopher Maher.
“All duty holders must ensure that all dangerous machinery has the appropriate level of guarding in place to avoid serious injury like in this case.”
Becketts Foods was fined £366,666 for its breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act and ordered to pay costs of £10,978.09.
