WorkSafe Victoria | A poultry farm operator has been convicted and fined $325,000 after a worker was fatally crushed in a conveyer belt at Lethbridge in 2023.
Lemitech Pty Ltd was sentenced in the Geelong County Court after earlier pleading guilty to a single charge of failing to ensure that a workplace was safe and without risks to health.
The court heard Lemitech had a conveyor system installed to transport chicken manure from underneath various cages inside a shed at the farm, including a horizontal conveyor belt that took the manure outside.
Workers would sometimes perform work or check the operation of the horizontal belt and adjust its tracking if required, by removing a guard that covered the tail pulley of the conveyor system.
In March 2023, 34-year-old Liam Harrington was performing works on or in connection with the horizontal belt when he became entangled in the rotating components of the unguarded tail pulley and died.
Lemitech admitted it was reasonably practicable to reduce the risk of serious injury or death by installing a fixed interlocked guard with a viewing window on the tail pully or interlocked in-running nip guards over the roller of the tail pulley, or a maintenance jog function to slow the conveyor when the existing guard was removed.
