An apprentice being trained to use machinery at a manufacturing company was injured when his shirt was caught in a radial drill, and pulled him into the exposed moving parts. he suffered three broken ribs and needed several skin grafts.
The company was prosecuted by the HSE and fined £187,600 with £7,464 in costs for breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. This section of the Act sets out the employer’s duty to ensure, as far as reasonably practicable, the health, safety, and welfare at work of all his employees. As the dangerous parts of the drill were exposed and accessible, the employer had breached that duty.
Common safety issues in manufacturing
Unguarded, and poorly guarded machinery is sadly all too common in manufacturing, and many avoidable injuries, some life-changing, happen every year. It’s not difficult to ensure that equipment is safe before using it; there are many established mechanisms in existence such as pre-use or start-up safety checks, audits and inspections, and hazard and near miss reporting. Any of these should raise unsafe situations so that they can be corrected.
The absence of these checks results in no action being taken, and broken or missing guards become the norm for the workplace. In some cases the checks are carried out, but still no action is taken.
Another worrying fact is that when people are trained in such workplaces, they are trained to work with potentially dangerous equipment, which obviously may be putting them at risk. This is grossly unfair to employees, and employers cannot be forgiven for this. By employing people, many responsibilities and duties are taken on. These are set in law, and are not optional. One of these duties is to find out exactly how to run a business employing others, and find out their responsibilities themselves. It isn’t someone else’s job to tell them. Running a business isn’t just about making money.
Lessons must be learned
Employers must learn lessons from these prosecutions, and the accompanying publicity which can harm the business concerned.
Take a wake-up pill and check if you’re doing enough in your workplace. Speak up if you’re not, and do something about it. We can’t continue injuring people at work.
The prosecution information in this article was found in an HSE press release; the incident was in July 2023, and the prosecution in December 2025.