Ikea Bristol

Ikea fined £100,000 after unguarded roof-top fan sliced worker’s fingers

The UK division of global furniture retailer Ikea has been fined £100,000 after a worker lost part of two fingers during maintenance work on a roof-mounted fan at its Bristol store.

The incident, at the city’s Eastgate Shopping Centre on 21 November 2016, was investigated and prosecuted by Bristol City Council.

A maintenance engineer was checking a fault on a fan located on the roof of the building when the accident occurred.

Council health and safety officers found that the fan and eight others on the roof were not guarded, while no risk assessment or training had been undertaken for the task.

In addition, there was no adequate risk assessment in place for fault-finding or maintenance work of this kind, and the engineer had received no health and safety training from Ikea for this work.

On 3 October, Ikea’s UK division pleaded guilty at Bristol Magistrates’ Court to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act.

The company was fined £100,000 and was ordered to pay costs of £6,407 to Bristol City Council.

Senior managers from Ikea were in court for the hearing, according to the council.

A letter from a board member was read out which expressed remorse for the incident and said that the lessons learned from this case been shared throughout the business.

Read more here.