A Scottish fish processor must pay a total of £263,375 after a chargehand’s right arm was pulled into a machine from which a fixed guard had been removed during maintenance and never refitted. The accident happened on 19 August 2025; the conviction by Peterhead Sheriff Court in Peterhead, Scotland, United Kingdom, followed on 28 October 2026. According to the UK’s workplace safety regulator, the incident was wholly preventable.
What happened
The accident took place on 19 August 2025 at Lunar Freezing and Cold Storage Company Limited in Peterhead. The company processes and freezes fish for storage and distribution. On the production line, a so-called rack loader, with a pusher component, feeds boxes onto a conveyor mechanism.
About two weeks before the accident, a fixed guard panel on the machine had been removed during maintenance work. The panel was never refitted afterwards. This created a gap through which the rack loader could be reached without the power being switched off. Workers repeatedly went through that gap to free jammed boxes, instead of using the interlocked access gate provided for that purpose.
On the day of the accident, the chargehand did the same: he reached through the gap towards a jammed box without stopping the machine or isolating the power. When the machine restarted, his right arm was pulled into the rack loader. A colleague managed to stop the machine. The man suffered a broken jaw, with injuries to his chest and arm. He underwent surgery in which metal plates were fitted in his jaw, spent three days in hospital and returned to work on 29 September 2025. He has since made a full recovery.
Findings
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the UK’s workplace safety regulator, investigated the accident and concluded that it was wholly preventable. Maintenance staff had seen the missing guard panel but had not had it refitted. In addition, the company’s weekly inspection checklist did not cover non-electrical fixed guards at all: the checks focused on electrical guards but not on mechanical shielding such as the removed panel.
The company pleaded guilty to breaching Regulation 11(1) and (2) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) and Section 33(1)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. HSE inspector Nicky Smith said: “This was a wholly preventable incident which left a worker seriously injured” and “A missing guard and an unchecked gap left the way open for a worker to be dragged into a machine.”
Conviction
On 28 October 2026, more than fourteen months after the accident, Peterhead Sheriff Court convicted Lunar Freezing and Cold Storage Company Limited and fined it £245,000, plus a victim surcharge of £18,375, totalling £263,375.
Recommendations
Inspector Smith stressed that guards must stay in place and that inspections must cover every guard, not only the electrical ones: “Guards must be kept in place, and checks must cover every guard, not just the electrical ones.” The press release also points to HSE guidance HSG253, “The safe isolation of plant and equipment”, on safely isolating plant and equipment.
Context
Independently of this case, HSE’s general guidance on maintaining work equipment describes the same core obligation: before maintenance, moving parts must be stopped and energy sources isolated, and machines must be “locked off” whenever there is a risk that the power could be switched back on by accident. The same guidance states that protection against contact with dangerous parts should remain in place wherever possible, and that at least temporary shielding, warnings and barriers are needed where that is not possible.
For HSE professionals worldwide, this case illustrates a familiar risk pattern: a guard removed during maintenance that quietly becomes standard practice, without energy sources ever being isolated. The principles of lock-out/tag-out during machine maintenance apply globally, but they only work when inspection routines actually check every physical guard and maintenance teams report deviations instead of learning to live with them.
Source: Fish processing firm fined almost a quarter of a million pounds after worker’s arm pulled into machine after safety guard left off, HSE, 29 October 2026
Additional research: HSE — Maintenance of work equipment
