Tiles & Tops, a stonework company based in Croydon, has been fined £14,000, ordered to pay costs of £1260 and also ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £170 after pleading guilty to breaching an Improvement Notice served by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
Employees at the company were exposed to a risk of amputation because the blade of an Elenis automatic bridge was not properly guarded. Following a visit to the company, a HSE inspector served an Improvement Notice on Tiles & Tops requiring a guard to be fitted to the saw. A follow-up visit three months later found that temporary fencing was actually moved to one side so was not offering any protection to those using the saw.
The Improvement Notice cited a breach of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations SI 1998/2306. The company had previously been prosecuted in 2016 for failing to control stone dust.
Speaking after the case, HSE inspector Sarah Whittle said, "In this case, the company completely failed to grasp the importance of installing and maintaining basic but essential guards to prevent access to the dangerous parts of machinery. Despite being given several weeks to rectify the situation, the temporary fencing put in place by the company was clearly inadequate.
"Companies should be aware that HSE may bring prosecutions where duty holders continually fail to address risks in the workplace or where they fail to respond to enforcement notices.”
