SHOPPING giants Littlewoods have been fined £10,000 by Bolton magistrates after an employee trapped his arm in a conveyor belt.

Electrician Francis Bleasdale was trying to mend the conveyor at the returns depot in Blackshaw Lane when the machinery started up. Luckily a colleague was standing beside the control panel and hit the off button.

Mr Bleasdale escaped with bruising and cuts and spent the night in the Royal Bolton Hospital being treated for his injuries. Littlewoods admitted breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act on December 18, 2000.

Bolton Council solicitor Gary Parr, prosecuting, told the court that Mr Bleasdale and two colleagues had decided to repair the conveyor belt after a maintenance company could not come until the following day.

They overrode the equipment's safety device and started to replace cabling in the belt, which carried a 400 volt current. There were no warning barriers and no insulating rubber floor matting.

When Mr Bleasdale reached into the belt to untwist a cable the machinery started up, trapping his arm.

David Hewitt, defending, said the company believed that instead of using an override key to turn the belt back on, one employee had used a screwdriver.

"That simply shouldn't have happened," he said.

It was the first time the company had been prosecuted for health and safety breaches. Since the accident it had reviewed maintenance procedures and insists that staff keep to them. The firm has also produced a risk assessment for each piece of equipment.

Magistrates described the breaches of health and safety law which led to the accident as "very serious". The company was fined £6,500 for failing to carry out proper maintenance procedures and a further £3,500 for not having adequate risk assessments on its equipment. The firm was also ordered to pay £1,500 costs.