A Wolverhampton tyre company was in court on 1 November after a teenage employee fractured his skull whilst maintaining machinery.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted the firm after one of its maintenance team struck his head at the firm's Wolverhampton site.

Wolverhampton Magistrates heard that on 11 September 2009, a 17 year old apprentice was working with two other mechanical maintenance engineers to repair a tyre press when the internal bladder of the press re-energised and burst. This blew the lid off the press with great force and noise, causing the apprentice to move very quickly out of the way and, in doing so, he struck his head on nearby equipment.

The firm, whose head office is in Birmingham, was fined £18,250 and ordered to pay £4,807 costs after contravening Section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

An inspector from the HSE said:

"This incident was entirely preventable had there been a safe system in place to ensure that services to the press had been isolated prior to the start of the maintenance work. It is also clear that the maintenance team were insufficiently trained to carry out the necessary diagnostic work on this piece of machinery."