Building firm fined £633,300 after employee’s legs are crushed.

An Essex building material supplier has been fined £633,300 after an employee’s legs were crushed between metal frames moving on a production line.  An HSE investigation found that the interlocked gate, through which employees used to enter the frame cleaning area, did not stop the power on the preceding sections of track and would therefore not prevent a frame from moving into this area when employees were working. The investigation also revealed that the company had failed to act following several near misses which had occurred on this section of the track in similar circumstances. A risk assessment had been carried out by the company several years before the incident, which identified “additional control measures required to reduce risk to an acceptable level”, but no action had been taken.