Shepherd Neame, the country’s oldest brewery business, has appeared in court for safety breaches after a young agency worker lost his finger in an unprotected machine.
21-year-old Billy Scanlan, from Sheerness, had gone into a fenced-off part of the site which contained a running production machine and was hosing down an area of the site when he slipped.
As he tried to regain his balance, he instinctively reached out with his left arm but in doing so his hand came into contact with an operating part of the machine and it was taken in by a sprocket on a conveyor.
The incident, which occurred in June 2014 was investigated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) which found that Shepherd Neame had failed in its to duty to ensure staff could not access dangerous moving parts of the machine.
The company was fined £10,000 along with £1,007 in costs after it admitted to a breach of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.