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Fife worker crushed in potato harvester

A Cupar farming partnership has been fined £112,500 after a worker was killed when he was crushed between the rollers of a potato harvester.

Keith Wannan, 34, from Cupar, died as he was replacing rubber sleeves on the rollers of a potato harvester to prepare it for the new harvesting season.

His employers, GJ Orr of Foodieash, were sentenced at Cupar Sheriff Court after an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) into the death on 6 September 2009.

The HSE investigation found GJ Orr had not conducted a proper assessment of the risks involved in carrying out maintenance and testing work on the potato harvester. As the work Mr Wannan was doing required the removal of fixed guarding, GJ Orr should have identified the risk of exposure to dangerous moving parts.

GJ Orr, of Foodie Farm, Foodieash, Cupar pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work Etc. Act 1974.

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