£10,000 fine for worker's horrific death
THE operations director of a pet food firm where a worker was crushed to death must pay £10,000 for failing to ensure his health and safety.
Philip Thompson, aged 50, was responsible for protecting workers' safety at Butcher's Pet Care, in Crick, when engineer John O'Connor, 38, was crushed in a canning machine.
The father-of-two, from Rugby, died after he tried to unblock a jammed stacking machine at the pet food canning plant in Dockham Way, in November 2003.
The fatal accident happened when he entered a palletising machine without first turning it off. Once he had unblocked it, the machine automatically restarted and crushed him to death.
An inquest in 2007, which recorded a verdict of accidental death caused by asphyxiation, heard how senior staff members admitted they knew workers would regularly gain access the palletising and depalletising machine from a staircase, by squeezing through or under railings.
Thompson, of Flecknoe, near Rugby, appeared at Northampton Crown Court accused of breaching health and safety regulations by failing to ensure workers' safety.
However, he pleaded guilty to a lesser 'strict liability' charge of failing to prevent access to dangerous machinery by not installing suitable and sufficient guard rails.
He was also ordered to pay 4,000 costs.
Deanna Heer, prosecuting for the Health & Safety Executive, said staff were under pressure to keep the production line running or pet food would spoil if stuck too long in the superheated oven.
She said: "The evidence suggests the practice of entering the machine by the railings had been going on for some time and the defendant was aware of the practice of doing that. However, the evidence that he was directly aware is disputed.
"A practical way of sentencing him is upon the basis that he ought to have known employees were entering the machine in this way.
"The need to keep the production line running was a priority because of the problem that food held in the hydrostat oven could be wasted and that there was an increased likelihood employees would try and resolve problems as soon as possible. By failing to guard the area of the stair rails, the defendant breached regulations."
Mr O'Connor had entered the machine without isolating it and, once the palletising machine was unblocked, he had only a second to move to safety before the hoist restarted and killed him.
Email to a friend
Print this page- BREAKING NEWS: Tributes paid to Niamh Curry as brave five-year-old loses battle against cancer
- BREAKING NEWS: Pensioner dies after collision at Northampton shopping centre
- Man tied to tree and beaten on Northampton Racecourse
- BREAKING NEWS: Seven-year-old boy dies following house fire in Northamptonshire
- Northampton binmen at ‘breaking point’
- Northampton binmen at ‘breaking point’
- Saints’ stadium plans get support as long as traffic issues solved
- Staff strike at Northampton school over academy plans forces closure
- Eastern European pupils helping school standards across Northampton
- Vow to crack down on anti-social behaviour across Northampton’s eastern district
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Northampton
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 21 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 11 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 20 mph
Wind direction: East
