Company Fined after Worker Traps Hand

Thorntons, a high street chocolate company, has been fined for a breach in health and safety.

Thorntons was recently fined for issues with health and safety at work.  The worker was dragged by a chocolate whipping machine.  Ellen Yardley suffered severe injuries.  She was operating the foil wrapping machine, when her hand became trapped in the rotating parts of the machine.  This occurred while she was attempting to clean the mechanism.

She broke her middle finger and has other injuries.  These other injuries will prevent her from working for ten weeks.  An investigation conducted by the HSE showed that the safety guards were not adequate for the machine and fell below safety standards.  In this case, a workstation risk assessment should have been conducted by the factory and the problem fixed well before an accident occurred.

The company has been fined £20,000 and is ordered to pay £7,680 in other costs.  They did admit to the breach of work health and safety regulations at the Derbyshire Court.  HSE stated the injuries could have been avoided had the company examined their machinery with the risk assessment, as they should have done.

Cases like these require stringent health and safety regulations.  Without the HSE to be there checking on companies, there could be more injuries.  Regulations are extremely important.  This is why the current debate with Cameron wishing to cut some of the red tape is more meaningful.  An answer needs to be found for how to reduce all work related incidents.