The mum of a farm worker who was strangled to death after his clothes got caught in machinery said ‘lessons must be learned’.
Alban Watts, 61, from Blencow, was killed on January 11, 2023, while working for Bell Mount Farming Limited, an egg producer in Great Salkeld in Penrith, Cumbria.
Mr Watts was working alone in one of the poultry sheds when his clothing came into contact with an unguarded sprocket during one of the feeding periods.
An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) – Britain’s national workplace health and safety regulator – found the guard designed to prevent such access was not fixed in place and could simply be lifted off.
Noreen, Mr Watts’s mother, has said lessons must be learned from his tragic death.
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She said: ‘Mere words cannot express the horror and distress of hearing such an awful death and I can only hope Alban didn’t suffer.
‘I have now had to go through every parent’s nightmare of surviving their own child, in tragic circumstances.
‘Above all, I want lessons to be learnt from this tragedy.’
Noreen said her son was an accomplished mechanic, joiner and carpenter – and that his death was ‘cruel’.
His brother Martin Watts and sister Louise Robinson also spoke of their sadness and anger that his life was worth less than ‘the cost of a 50 pence screw’.
They said: ‘Losing Alban has taken a part of our trio, without him we are an incomplete unit. Not a day goes by where he is not missed.
‘Alban worked at Bell Mount for 12 years and he enjoyed his job. But it’s taken the life of a member of our family for them to do their job.
‘We are angry that his life was worth less than a 50p screw to a multi-million-pound company.
‘Such a small item could have saved his life. You can’t replace a person who meant so much to us.’
An HSE investigation found Bell Mount Farming Limited failed to prevent access to dangerous parts of machinery – in this case the rotating sprocket of the drive mechanism which powered the feeding system in the poultry shed.
The system operated for three-minute periods at set times throughout the day but for the remainder of the time it was motionless.
The bolt holes in the guard were stripped, preventing it from being secured to the frame of the drive unit.
These holes in the guard did not align with those in the frame, making it impossible for the guard to be fixed securely, said the HSE.
HSE guidance states employers must take effective measures to prevent access to dangerous parts of machinery.
The company was fined £50,000 and ordered to pay £6,038 in costs following a prosecution by the HSE.
It pleaded guilty to breaching the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 at Warrington Magistrates’ Court yesterday (Thursday, November 20).
After the hearing, HSE inspector Matthew Shepherd said: ‘What is most tragic about this case is the failure of the company was such a basic and simple one.
‘What was such an easy fault to fix cost a much-loved man his life and left a family without a brother and a son.
‘Preventing access to dangerous parts of machinery is a well-known and long-standing part of any health and safety management system.
‘Alban’s death shows the importance of ensuring machinery is adequately guarded and the devastating consequences of getting it wrong.
‘We will not hesitate to take action against companies which do not do all that they should to keep people safe.’
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