A major bedding manufacturer has been fined £80,000 after an employee suffered horrific injuries when his hand was drawn into a machine. John Cotton Group Limited faced legal action following the incident on 9 December 2020 – which resulted in the machine operator having three fingers on their left hand amputated.
The incident occurred due to there being inadeuate procedures in place to allow safe interventions with machiney. Today the company said the incident was a matter of "sincerest regret" and action had been taken to make sure it could never happen again.
The 36-year-old worker, from Wigan, had noticed a fault with the machine at the company's Snuggledown premises in Ashton-in-Makerfield. In an attempt to resolve the issue, he tried to power down the machine to allow access. However, the machine was still moving, and his left hand made contact with dangerous moving parts.
