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Printing company fined £112,500 over death of worker

One of the UK's leading printing groups has been fined £112,500 at Peterborough Crown Court after a maintenance engineer was crushed to death in a printing press.

Ian Ebbs, a 43-year-old father of two from Morton, near Bourne in Lincolnshire, was working the night shift at the Wyndeham Peterborough (then known as St Ives Peterborough Ltd) plant in Storey's Bar Road in October 2008 when an automated process preparing the presses for a new print run came to a halt.

The problem was identified as a stuck locking pin on the paddle wheel assembly, which prevented it moving downwards. Mr Ebbs climbed into the machinery to get at two air lines which controlled the locking pin and swapped them over, freeing the paddle wheel which then came down on him, trapping him between it and fixed parts of the printing press. He died at the scene.

Wyndeham Peterborough admitted breaching Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 at Peterborough Crown Court and fined £112,500 and ordered to pay £80,000 costs.

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