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Bradford Magistrates Court heard how on 10 March 2009, employee Allan Formoy, 57, from Bradford used his finger to free a mechanical jam in a machine. The equipment fed metal pins onto a grinding line at Federal Mogul Bradford Ltd’s premises on Neville Road in the city.
Mr Formoy’s finger became trapped in the machinery and the tip was severed.
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.
“This case demonstrates the value in spending the time to do a suitable risk assessment, identify the control measures required and act upon these findings”.
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