Negligent Ley Rubber fined after injury

A Liverpool-based rubber manufacturer has been fined a total of more than £18,000 after a worker suffered serious hand injuries in unguarded machinery.

Ley Rubber admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work Regulations during a hearing before South Sefton magistrates on 6 September.

The court was told that in Dec 2010, the 47-year-old employee had been making adjustments to a moulding machine running at 200C degrees when the metal clamps holding the rubber moulds in place suddenly released.

One of the clamps trapped the employee's hand against the machine's control panel. As a result he suffered burns and crush injuries.

An investigation by the HSE then discovered that the machine lacked the correct guard. The company was fined £15,000 with £3,500 costs.

After the case a senior HSE spokesman commented: "The employee still has difficulty using his left hand nearly two years on from the incident. If Ley Rubber had carried out a proper assessment of the risks its employees faced then it would have been able to identify the need for guards to be installed on the machine.

"The firm was able to fit suitable guards just two days after we visited the site, but if they had been in place at the time of the incident then it could have been avoided altogether."

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