Firm fined for paper reel crush injuries

A Welsh company has been fined £120,000 for the factory accident which led to a worker being paralysed as a result of suffering severe crush injuries.

A judge at Mold Crown Court oversaw the case and heard the paper company admit to serious health and safety breaches relating to the factory accident, in which a worker became crushed beneath a two-tonne reel of paper.

After hearing how attention had been drawn to safety failures on a number of previous occasions, the judge described the workplace accident as "entirely foreseeable" and ordered the company to pay the six-figure fine.

The judge said, "In very simple terms this accident occurred when he was attempting to control and slow the descent of a two-tonne reel of paper from the table to the floor with his shoulder.

"He was following a system of work deemed safe by the defendants. It was not so."

Furthermore, the judge acknowledged that the fine did "not in anyway provide compensation" for the injured man. It is now likely that a no win, no fee factory accident claim will follow.