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Prosecution Details

Offender John Frederick Dickenson

Charges

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Charge Charge Number Offence Date Date Convicted Regulation Section Penalty Provision Penalty Imposed Date Sentenced
1 AR6798/09 29 May 2006 18th March 2010 3A(3)(a)(i) $1,500.00 18th March 2010
Description of Breach(es)

The Accused was a Director of Canon Foods Services Pty Ltd (a body corporate) when Canon Foods Services Pty Ltd was guilty of an offence under the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 and that offence occurred with the consent or connivance of, and/or was attributable to the neglect of the Accused; contrary to sections 55(1), 19(1) and 19A(2) of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984.

Background Details

Canon Foods Services Pty Ltd is a manufacturer of convenience foods such as crumbed chicken and fish products, burgers and other similar products.

The Company's business premises comprise offices and a factory unit located at 7 Madison Street in Canning Vale.  The factory unit houses food processing machinery and packaging equipment.

The Company's food processing operations involves mincing, mixing, forming, cooking and packaging the various products.

At all relevant times, the accused was a director of the Company and was also employed as a Manager, which involved him generally overseeing the Company's food processing operations.

Among other matters, the accused was involved in planning and developing the Company's products, ordering the stock and managing customer orders.

Although the accused did not have a "hands on" role in relation to the food processing, he would daily walk around the factory floor.  He knew how the food processing machinery operated.

One of the machines in the Company's factory was a large food mincer/grinder, known as the Seydelmann Automatic Grinder ("the Grinder").

The Grinder had a large stainless steel hopper into which product is placed.  Once the product is placed in the hopper, it is fed by means of an auger - being a rotating helical metal shaft, and then into grinding rings, where the product is minced - the grinding rings which mince the product are separately guarded.

The Grinder had an interlocking step fixed to the front of the machine, which was designed to allow the Grinder to operate only whilst the step was locked in the upright position.  The step was described by the Operation Manual as a "security device" to bring the operation of the machine to a stop when the interlock mechanism is released and the step is unfolded.

On the morning of 29 May 2006, one of the Company's employees was in the process of grinding blocks of cheese in the Grinder.

During this process he was standing on the interlocking step, placing the cheese into the hopper of the Grinder.  Even though the step was not in the upright position, the Grinder continued to operate.

He turned the Grinder off a few times, in order to flick some cheese that was sticking to the sides of the hopper down near the auger.  At approximately 9.00 am he turned the Grinder on again, engaged it into slow speed and reached down into the hopper to push the cheese into the auger.

The accused was in a position to observe him engaged in this process.

As he pushed the cheese down his left hand came into contact with the auger, severing his index and middle fingers and pulling skin and muscle from the back of his hand and arm.

He was immediately transferred by ambulance to hospital for emergency surgery, however, the index and middle fingers on his left hand were permanently lost.

The injured person commenced work with the accused in early April 2006 and stated that no one had ever told him not to put his hands in the machine.

The accused failed to advise the injured person not to operate the Grinder in such a manner.

The injured person was not aware that the step that he was standing on in order to reach into the hopper was intended to be interlocked so that it would automatically stop the Grinder when it was placed in the "down" position.  The interlock mechanism had worked during the period of his employment.

The accused was aware that the step fixed to the front of the Grinder had an interlock mechanism but he had failed to notice that it was not working.

Shortly following the date of the offence, the Company:

  • arranged for an electrician to inspect and service the interlocking step on the Grinder;
  • installed an interlocking guard over the hopper on the Grinder, so that employees could no longer reach into the hopper while the Grinder was operating.

 




Outcome Summary

Pleaded Guilty.

Court Magistrates Court of Western Australia - Armadale
Costs $900.00

Search the records of all successful prosecutions taken by WorkSafe under the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 and Occupational Safety and Health Regulations 1996 since 1st January 2005. Searching and indexing of this database is limited to convictions for offences against the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 and Occupational Safety and Health Regulations 1996 committed on or after 1 January 2005, when the statutory offence and penalty regimes were significantly amended.

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