A Teesside food firm has been fined £2,400 after a worker's hand was trapped between the rollers of a cooling conveyor while he was cleaning it.

The Baked Snacks Co Limited, of Imperial Way, South Bank, Middlesbrough, was today (2 February) also ordered to pay costs of £2,000 and a victim surcharge of £15 at Teesside Magistrates' Court after it pleaded guilty of two breaches of The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

The court heard how on 9 October 2008, the 22-year-old man was working as a mixing operative at the company's factory, where it produces baked snacks. His duties included cleaning his work area and other areas of the production line, among them the cooling conveyors.

The worker was cleaning the cooling conveyor at a point where there was no guarding of an in-running nip while the machinery was running. His right hand became trapped between two rollers and was badly injured.

Source: HSE