Brewery fined after girl injured

Feb 25 2008 by Staff Reporter, Liverpool Daily Post

A LEADING brewery was fined and ordered to pay costs after an accident with an employee at a St Helens pub.

Bedfordshire-based Whitbread Group Plc, trading as Brewers Fayre, Micklehead Green, Lea Green, St Helens, pleaded guilty to a Health and Safety offence after a 17-year-old female employee – who was cleaning the indoor children’s play equipment, the Fun Factory – injured her back. The teenager had slid down the external surface of the spiral, tubular slide and fell from a height of about nine feet.

St Helens Magistrates’ Court fined the brewery £15,000, with costs of £4,417.94, after the case was brought to court by St Helens Council’s environmental health section.

District Judge Lomax noted the guilty plea by Whitbread, the company’s previous convictions, and its failure to learn lessons.