A plastic and paper manufacturing company has been fined after a worker suffered crush injuries from trapping his hand in an unguarded printing machine.

Birmingham Magistrates’ Court heard how an employee of Euro Packaging UK Limited was injured at the company’s site in Yardley, when his hand was drawn into the print rollers while he was attempting to clean the running machine resulting in partial amputation of two fingers.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) into the incident which occurred on 5 December 2016, found that the lack of guarding on the machine was the root cause of this incident together with a lack of training and supervision.

Euro Packaging UK Limited of Brickfield Road, Birmingham pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. The company has been fined £100,000 and ordered to pay costs of £1503.05.

Speaking after the hearing HSE inspector Karl Raw said “This case serves as a reminder to industry that planning and guarding of machinery requires regular reviews and monitoring to ensure workplace safety. The need to review machinery guarding is a positive benefit to improving workplace safety”.

Notes to Editors:

1. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety. We seek to prevent work-related death, injury and ill health through regulatory actions that range from influencing behaviours across whole industry sectors through to targeted interventions on individual businesses. These activities are supported by globally recognised scientific expertise. www.hse.gov.uk^[1]
2. More about the legislation referred to in this case can be found at: www.legislation.gov.uk/ ^[2]
3. HSE news releases are available at http://press.hse.gov.uk