A 55-year-old employee at the printer’s Petty site in Whitehall Road, Leeds, had part of his finger sliced off when he was trying to clear debris from the inner mechanism of a Ferag Jetfeeder, in February 2012.
The machine unexpectedly started up, trapping his right hand and shearing off part of his finger. A subsequent investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that the machine was not isolated from its power source and that access to its moving parts was not sufficiently guarded.
The HSE also found that Polestar “had not provided a safe system of work for getting into the machine to clear blockages or to carry out maintenance".
The company was fined £10,000 at Leeds Magistrates' Court yesterday and ordered to pay £2,997 in costs after admitting a breach of health and safety regulations.
HSE inspector Bradley Wigglesworth said that, following a three-year "intervention", the company had been told by the HSE in 2007 to ensure all machines were guarded, that isolation measures were in place and that safety procedures were clearly documented for training purposes. But following the incident in 2012 it was found that these measures had not been implemeted, which accounted for the size of yesterday's fine, Wigglesworth suggested.
“There is no excuse for companies to operate without protecting employees from dangerous parts of machinery. The requirement for guarding is well known and understood by industry,” said Wigglesworth.
“Polestar’s failure to properly assess the risks or implement a safe system for isolation and lock-off had serious consequences. Had their guarding standards been of an acceptable standard, the worker’s injury could have been avoided," he added.
Wigglesworth said that Polestar had been quick to act following the HSE's investigation, and that the required safety measures had now been implemented across all Polestar sites.
"They've responded very well and put in place all the requirements across the group as well as a new risk assessment, so I'm very happy with the situation now," he said.
The employee involved in the incident has since returned to work.
