Tulip fined for accidents

- Published: 27 May, 2008

A meat production company has been fined £265,000 after two workers were injured in industrial accidents.

Tulip had admitted breaches of health and safety regulations at its Thetford, Norfolk plant at an earlier hearing.

One employee lost the tips of three fingers in a cutting machine and a maintenance worker received an electric shock from a live light fitting.

At the sentencing hearing before Norwich Crown Court, it was revealed that, in 2006, the company was fined £130,000 after a worker was seriously injured at its Kings Lynn plant.

There had also been multiple previous warnings for breaches of health and safety, the court heard.

Fining the company, Judge Peter Jacobs commented: "This is a company which is not doing its own risk assessment. This is a company who waits for something to go wrong, Health and Safety identify it, and then they put it right."

Tulip commented after the case that it took health and safety extremely seriously and that procedures at its sites had now been upgraded.