Cheshire Farm Ice Cream in Tattenhall has been forced to pay out more than £18,000 for ‘safety failings’ after an employee’s finger was cut off by a fruit feeder machine.

Tattenhall Dairy Products Ltd, which runs the ice cream farm, was fined £7,500 and ordered to pay £11,287.22 in prosecution costs at Chester Magistrates Court today (Thursday, March 26), after the grisly incident at Drumlan Hall Farm on August 8, 2013.

The court heard that the 60-year-old employee from Tattenhall, who does not wish to be named, had been asked to clean the fruit feeder so it was ready for the next batch of ice cream.

She assumed the machine was switched off and tried to remove pieces of cookies at the back with her left index finger when it became caught by the rotating blades - severing her finger off to below the knuckle.

The court was told that employees had needed to clean the machine up to three times every day by removing the chute which fed in the fruit, but in doing so, it meant dangerous moving parts became exposed.

An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that employees had been told to switch off the machine when they cleaned it, but no other measures were put in place to make sure they were not put in danger - meaning there was a high risk of them being injured if they simply forgot to check, due to human error.

The company has since installed an interlocking device on the machine, which means power is automatically cut when the chute is removed.

Tattenhall Dairy Products Ltd, based at Newton Lane in Tattenhall, pleaded guilty to single breaches of the Provision and Use of Equipment Regulations 1998 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.

After the hearing, HSE Inspector Lorna Sherlock said: “The fruit feeder needed to be cleaned several times every day so it was almost inevitable that an employee would forget to check it was switched off on one occasion.

“Tattenhall Dairy Products should have had suitable guarding or, as a minimum, a robust safe system of work in place to make sure no one was injured but there was none. A worker lost her index finger as a result.

“It would have been relatively easy to fit a device to the machine which automatically cut the power when the chute was removed. However, the company waited until after the incident before making this vital safety improvement.”