Company fined over severed finger
15/06/2010
A manufacturing company has been fined £10,000 after an employee severed the tip of his finger in a machine.
Allan Formoy, 57, was working at Federal Mogul Bradford Ltd, which makes precision parts for the motor industry, on March 10, 2009, when the machine he was operating became jammed.
He used his finger to free the blockage in the equipment, which fed metal pins on to a grinding line, but it became trapped, Bradford Magistrates' Court heard.
Federal Mogul, based in Neville Road in the city, was prosecuted for failing to properly safeguard the machinery.
A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found control measures to prevent such an incident at the firm, part of global engineering giant Federal Mogul Corporation, were not in place.
Federal Mogul pleaded guilty to two health and safety breaches. Regulation 11(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 and Regulation 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. The company was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £5,000 costs.
Following the hearing, HSE inspector Morag Irwin said: "A suitable and sufficient risk assessment would have identified the need for control measures, the most obvious being guarding, to prevent access to the step feeder.
"Fitting guards is not a costly, time-consuming or difficult task, and had they been in place this incident would not have occurred and a painful injury could have been avoided."
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