Netherton firm hit with £18k bill after workers injured
A steel tube manufacturer has been landed with a court bill of more than £18,000 after two workers were injured, including one who suffered a severed thumb.
A 23-year-old at Marcegaglia (UK) Limited, in Netherton, crushed his right hand, fracturing two bones, Dudley Magistrates' Court heard yesterday.
The hearing was told he had reached through a gap in a fixed safety guard on a machine in order to pick up a steel coil and feed it back into the machinery.
By doing so he tripped a sensor, which caused the machine parts to close and trap his hand. Two weeks later, a 20-year-old apprentice severed the hand of his thumb after it was trapped in a machine. The court heard an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive had found both injuries happened as a result of poor guarding standards. Poor overall management of health and safety was also cited by experts.
Magistrates heard the apprentice was not being supervised at the time and had not been given a training schedule.
The firm admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. It was fined £11,000 for the breach, plus £7,878 costs.
After the hearing, HSE spokesman Jenny Skeldon said: "If the company had properly assessed the risks and ensured dangerous parts of the machinery were adequately guarded to prevent injury, both incidents need not have happened."
