14/10/2010 - Fencing producer fined £14,000
A fencing producer in Manchester has been fined £14,000 for endangering the safety of its workers.
Fencing Supplies, which has a factory in Mellors Road, Trafford Park, allowed staff to use nine cutting machines which had their safety guards disabled.
Visiting health and safety inspectors served prohibition notices on the firm in July last year, halting use of the machinery, and ordered it to improve its working practices.
Trafford Magistrates' Court heard that the guards on five machines had been deliberately bypassed. This meant that workers could gain access to them while they were still operating, to carry out maintenance work and remove waste materials.
Mike Lisle, the investigating inspector at HSE, said: "The machines should have automatically shut down before anyone was able to get close to the dangerous parts of the machinery. But as a result of the guards being defeated, the machines continued to operate with workers at risk of coming into contact with moving parts and suffering serious injury.
Fencing Supplies Ltd admitted breaking regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 by failing to prevent access to dangerous parts of machinery.
As well as the fine, the company was ordered to pay £2,774 costs on October 9.
Copyright © Press Association 2010
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