A SAXMUNDHAM firm has been fined after an employee was dragged by his arm into a machine likened to an old-fashioned clothes drying mangle.Trainee machine operator Paul Glossop, 21, from Leiston, suffered a fractured shoulder socket, friction burns, three fractured ribs, a torn liver, nerve damage and severe bruising in the accident last September, Lowestoft magistrates heard.

A SAXMUNDHAM firm has been fined after an employee was dragged by his arm into a machine likened to an old-fashioned clothes drying mangle.

Trainee machine operator Paul Glossop, 21, from Leiston, suffered a fractured shoulder socket, friction burns, three fractured ribs, a torn liver, nerve damage and severe bruising in the accident last September, Lowestoft magistrates heard.

API Tenza Ltd, at Carlton Park Industrial Estate – which produces self adhesive products like labels – was fined £7,500 and ordered to pay £846 in costs after admitting breaching a section of the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act by failing to have guarding in place.

Fining the company, magistrates said they were "appreciative" of the company's concern for their employee. They described it as a "serious accident" but listed a number of mitigating factors.

They pointed out a guard would have been in place very shortly after the accident.

They said the firm had shown "full co-operation" with the Health and Safety Executive and had no previous convictions or enforcement notices. The company had followed correct procedures in reporting the accident, they said.