After one of its employees suffered a serious personal injury at work, one brick manufacturer faced prosecution by the Government’s Health and Safety Executive for regulatory breach, experts say.
According to legal experts familiar with the incident, the unnamed factory worker, a forty eight year old man, had been employed at the Hartlbury, Worcestershire-based plant owned by Wienerberger Ltd, a multi-national brick making company, at the time of the accident. The worker had been endeavouring to fix a fault on a brick packaging line that had halted production, but the conveyor belt of the production line suddenly re-started while he was upon it, leading him to become crushed as a pallet lifter descended atop him.
The plant worker sustained extensive bruising, several fractures to his ribs, and a severe puncture wound to his back as the result of the accident. Personal injury compensation experts say that the man’s injuries had been so severe that he could not return to work for six weeks in order to allow him sufficient time to recover.
The HSE was alerted to the incident and launched a preliminary investigation into the circumstances surrounding the man’s injuries. Investigators discovered that a disconnected interlock that had should have been fixed to a gate on the perimeter safety fence of the machine had allowed the conveyor belt to re-start with the man atop it.
The HSE chose to prosecute Wienerberger Ltd for the health and safety breach, and the Cheadle, Cheshire-based company admitted liability at a hearing, leading to the company being assigned a fine of £20,000 for their role in the man’s injuries.
