A COMPANY was fined £3,500 after a worker was speared through his body with a six-foot wooden spike.

James Odgers, 35, had to undergo emergency surgery and was given a transfusion of ten pints of blood after the freak accident.

The father-of-two was feeding wood into a machine at Industrial Building Components (IBC) Limited, of Hartlepool, when a huge spike shot out striking him in the groin area.

In court, the company admitted a breach of equipment regulations after a health and safety inspection found the machine was faulty.

The company's solicitor Simon Young insisted the accident was an isolated incident and said bosses, who had an excellent health and safety record, acted swiftly to improve safety.

Mr Odgers, of Beachfield Drive, Hartlepool, has been unable to work since the accident 15 months ago, and was pensioned off by the company.

The accident happened in January last year when IBC, on Longhill Industrial Estate, was part of Expamet. The company was sold earlier this year.

Magistrates fined the company £3,500, and ordered it to pay £668 costs, after it admitted a breach of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment regulations of 1998, which require machines to be maintained in an efficient state.

Mr Odgers is planning to claim for compensation.