Health and Safety

Pubco fined £120,000 after horrific deep fat fryer burn incident

By Oli Gross

- Last updated on GMT

Pubco fined £120,000 after horrific deep fat fryer burn incident
A pubco has been ordered to pay £120,000 after a staff member suffered severe burns while filtering oil from a deep fat fryer.

Spirit Pub Company was also ordered to pay £10,029 costs after a member of staff at the Gatwick Manor pub in Manor Royal suffered the devastating burns to her face, arms and body which required her to have skin transplant surgery.

Dismissal

The general manager had changed the policy for maintaining the deep-fat fryers for three months, which eventually led to the horrific injuries. They were swiftly dismissed by Spirit, which has since been acquired by Greene King, following investigations by environmental officers.

Since the incident safety practices have been reviewed at the pubco to ensure there is no repeat of the incident.

The council brought the case against the pubco at Chichester Crown Court last week for the incident which happened in 2014, claiming Spirit had not ensured the safety of staff.

Spirit acted quickly in dismissing the general manager and Greene King has installed a new management team at the Gatwick Manor.

Reviewed policy

A Greene King spokesman said: "Since this incident, which happened before we owned this pub, safety practices have been extensively reviewed and updated to ensure something like this can never happen again."

Borough council cabinet member for environmental services and sustainability Geraint Thomas told the Crawley News, ​who were at the trial: "This was an alarming breach of the Health and Safety Act, which resulted in serious injury for a member of staff.

"The council takes cases like this very seriously and I hope this serves as a strong message to borough businesses that we will not tolerate poor health and safety management."

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