Company fined for failure to protect staff
Cardiff-based steel company has been fined after a worker sustained serious burns while carrying out electrical maintenance work at its city centre plant.
A 51 year old electrician from Pontypool, was working alone when he came in to contact with exposed, live electrical conductors and suffered a 33,000 volt shock. He was cleaning the conductors and circuit breaker units in a control room at the plant.
The court heard that normally, when carrying out maintenance, the room would be securely isolated to prevent the re-energising of the conductors.
However a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found on this occasion, that had not happened and as a result, the worker received the massive electric shock.
He was hospitalised for several weeks and is yet to return to work.
The company had failed to ensure the necessary precautions had been taken to prevent employees coming in to contact with the electrical conductors.
The company was fined £80,000 and ordered to pay full costs.
HSE inspector Steve Curry said:
"This incident need not have occurred, and must serve as a notice to other employers of the need to control risks from high voltage electrical equipment."
Updated on 9/13/2011