Sugar Construction has been fined £1,500 with costs of £1,543 after a worker was injured whilst using a Flip Over Saw.

George Warren Heath, 19, was part of a team refurbishing a house on 7 July 2014.

He was preparing wooden door stops to be installed onto door frames and the length of door stop was too wide and required narrowing.

To do this, Mr Heath decided to saw a thin strip off the entire length via a process known as 'ripping'.

While using the saw, he injured three of his fingers when they came into contact with the blade. One finger was amputated at the middle joint and another was cut through to the bone.

A month after the incident, Mr Heath was attending a physio every week.

There was no guard or riving knife fitted to the saw.


A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation found that the failure was to ensure that protective devices including the guard and protective appliances such as push sticks were taken to prevent access to the dangerous part of the machinery – the blade.

Weymouth Magistrates’ Court was told on 29 June, that whilst Sugar Construction had provided a guard with the saw, the guard was not in place at the time of the accident.

Other protection appliances such as a push stick were not available. In order to flip the saw over from its chop saw mode to its table saw mode, the guard had to be removed, but was never replaced.

Sugar Construction pleaded guilty to one charge of breaching Regulation 11(1)(a) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

HSE Inspector James Powell said: "This incident should never have happened and other workers that had used the saw had also been at risk."

“This case emphasises the need for employers to ensure that equipment is properly maintained to ensure that dangerous parts of the machinery cannot be accessed and that a risk assessment is carried out covering all foreseeable uses and operations of the work equipment."

"Table saws should not be used unless the appropriate safety devices and protection appliances are used. Workers should be provided with the information, instruction, training and supervision as is appropriate with the tool that is being used."

(LM)