A glass recycling company which was fined £180,000 after a forklift truck driver was crushed to death has now admitted responsibility for a worker’s hand being severed.

Dad-of-one Philip Grace, 43, lost his right hand while working on a conveyor belt at the Recresco site in Ellesmere Port on January 26, 2014.

The accident came less than four years after agency worker Ian Aliski, 25, died at the plant when his truck overturned on April 26, 2010.

Mr Grace suffered the catastrophic injury when working at the plant as a fabricator welder through an agency.

While making a repair his right hand became snagged in a moving conveyor belt and was pulled into a roller and severed.

He was taken to Whiston hospital, where attempts were made to reattach his hand, but his limb had to be amputated below the elbow.

Recresco faced two charges brought by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) at Liverpool Crown Court this morning (Wednesday, May 13).

Bernard Thorogood, defending, pleaded guilty on the company’s behalf to failing to ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of employees and also of people not in its direct employment.

Judge Thomas Teague, QC, said Recresco will be sentenced on June 16.

The judge had previously ordered the company to pay a £180,000 fine and more than £38,000 in costs over Mr Aliski’s death after it admitted a safety law breach last December.

The court heard how there was no company policy in place to ensure seatbelts were worn and Mr Aliski would likely have survived if he had been wearing one.

Judge Teague said there were “systematic failings” in safety.

Recresco, which handles thousands of tonnes of glass which is melted down so it can be re-used, turned over £37m in the year ending September 2013.