Cement maker pays £15,000 for worker's shattered knuckles

Prosecutions and Claims |
18.12.2007

Agrregate Industries has been fined £10,000 plus costs for maintenance failures after a worker suffered a crushed hand in an industrial cement mixer.

On 16 December 2006, Glen Whitelock was working as part of a cleaning shift at Aggregate Industries' cement works in Croft, Leicestershire. He was about to begin cleaning a large-scale industrial batch mixer to remove dried concrete when the hook securing the lid failed. The lid fell, crushing his hand.

Whitelock suffered three shattered knuckles, and lost parts of his ring finger and middle finger. Surgeons operated on him for eight hours. He has returned to work but has not regained full use of his hand and may still face amputation of his middle fingers.

HSE investigators found that the safety catch on the mixer's lid was missing. The defect had been identified in a statutory inspection in May 2006 but Aggregate Industries had failed to fix it.

"They didn't have any kind of maintenance regime for inspecting this aspect of the plant," John Marshall, HSE principal inspector for Leicestershire, told HSW.
The firm had a string of previous convictions for safety breaches, he added, including cases relating to fatalities.

Aggregate Industries admitted breaching Regulation 5(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 for failing to maintain work equipment in a safe condition, and Regulation 9(3)(b) of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations, which requires employers to ensure that a competent person inspects lifting equipment between thorough examinations.

On 16 November at Leicester Crown Court, Aggregate Industries was fined £5000 for each breach, and ordered to pay £5000 towards the prosecution's costs.

Judge Christopher Plunkett said the firm should have been wise before the event, not after, but accepted that Aggregate Industries was a responsible employer with low staff turnover. Whitelock has more than 20 years' service with the company.