Shropshire firm fined £13,000 for safety breach

Wem-based steel engineering company CRF(UK) Ltd was slapped with a £13,000 fine by magistrates in Shrewsbury yesterday after admitting breaching health and safety laws.

The company was also ordered to pay £7,871 in costs. It admitted failing to take effective measures to prevent access to dangerous moving parts after the accident that injured employee David Brown in 2011.

The 39 year old was working with a twin pillar drill when the sleeve on his overalls became entangled in the running drill spindle, which was unguarded.

He was pulled into the rotating spindle and as it continued to run, his arm and upper body were dragged into the machining area, resulting in him being pinned to the machine bed.

Unable to reach the stop button, he shouted for help and was eventually freed by a colleague. Mr Brown suffered three fractures in the neck and serious cuts and burns on his right forearm.

He was in hospital for seven weeks, went through ten weeks of physiotherapy and was in a neck brace for six months.

A Shrewsbury Magistrates Court yesterday, prosecutors from the Health and Safety Executive said Mr Brown's ordeal was an "accident waiting to happen," because there were no guards in place on the machinery.

The court was told that the firm had hired a health and safety consultancy to carry out workplace checks, but a report from 2008, which highlighted an absence of guarding on drills, had not been followed up.

HSE inspector Marie-Louise Riley-Roberts said: "There has been a substantial and fundamental failing over a sustained period of time." She also said there was a lack of supervision, instruction and training for machinery staff.

Ben Williams, defending, said lessons had been learned from the accident and that guards had since been installed on all machinery. He said: "You are not dealing with a company that puts profits ahead of its employees."