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After two members of staff suffered electric shocks from a faulty appliance, the cinema chain has been fined £9,500 and ordered to pay £2,573 in costs following a hearing at Manchester Magistrates’ Court this week.

Cineworld pleaded guilty to two charges under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 after a defective popcorn machine delivered shocks to two separate members of staff on 4th December 2013.

The appliance, which had a faulty switch and missing panel exposing a live circuit board, shocked one member of staff in Parrs Wood, East Didsbury shortly after 11am and the incident was reported to management.

Unfortunately, the machine was not taken out of use and no warning signs were placed to alert other members of staff of the issue, leading to a second employee receiving a shock later that evening.

Luckily neither employee suffered serious injury; however the consequences of such incidents could have been much more serious, even fatal, providing another reminder to the importance of carrying out formal visual inspections and appliance testing in the workplace.

With around 1000 accidents involving electric shocks or burns in the workplace reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) each year, it’s vital for regular in-house visual inspection and testing of appliances to be carried out by a trained and competent member of staff, or outsourced to a reliable PAT testing or facilities management company.

To find out more about PAT testing or training, please get in touch.