Somerset firm fined £660,000

A Somerset pre-cast concrete products manufacturing company has been fined £660,000 and ordered to pay costs of £14,563 after a maintenance fitter was fatally injured when trapped by machinery. HSE told the Court that when the site was inspected after the incident a spare key was discovered, which meant that access to machinery in the incident area was possible without turning off and isolating the machine. During the investigation HSE also found there was insufficient supervision over the isolation of machines; the company’s procedures for safe maintenance work were not consistently understood or applied, pointing to deficiencies in instruction and training; it was common for people to access dangerous areas while machines were running; and there were other spare keys which were easily accessible.