Prosecution Details

Being a person who, at a workplace, was an employer failed to ensure that plant was stoped and all energy sources were isolated using isolation devices and locked out using lockout devices when access to the plant was required for the purpose of cleaning and it was practicable to do the cleaning when the plant was stopped.

Contract cleaners were used to clean equipment at a meat export processing establishment. On 21 August 1997 a female cleaner with three months service was cleaning the pork viscera table while it was running. During this process the worker became entangled in the machinery and suffered a fractured rib, contusion of the lung, a crushed liver, ulnar nerve damage and paraesthesia of the face.

Wynne's Pty Ltd T/As Clover Meats was also successfully prosecuted in relation to this accident.

The defendant pleaded guilty.