Lack of guarding causes broken arm and £194,000 fine during commissioning

Sovex Limited, a Wirral based company, was been fined £194,000 (inc.costs) after a worker’s arm was injured in machinery.

The circumstances were:

• Sovex were installing a new conveyor belt system at the UK Mail site in Coventry.
• There were a lack of effective guarding and isolation procedures on the machinery.
• On 21 January 2016 an installation engineer of Sovex was commissioning the machinery.
• His arm was pulled into the machinery.
• The arm was fractured.

GEA Mechanical Engineering fined £80,000 for fracture caused by poorly planned lifting operation

Milton Keynes based GEA Mechanical Engineering Limited was fined £80,831 (inc.costs) for safety failings after a worker suffered serious injuries to his leg.

The circumstances were:

• On 29 January 2015 GEA workers were attempting to lift a 900kg decanter scroll back into its mobile trailer.
• GEA failed to ensure that staff were suitably trained and competent to plan and carry out a lift of this complexity.
• They were struggling to manoeuver it far enough into the trailer. 
• They asked Ralph Jago, an employee from the office staff, to assist them.
• During this operation, the decanter slid forward trapping Mr Jago’s right leg against metal racking. 
• He was trapped for an hour and a half before fire and rescue services were able to free him.  
• He suffered serious fractures to his right leg requiring metal rods and pins to be inserted

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