A FARMER has been fined £10,000 after admitting responsibility for an accident that led to a worker losing his leg.

The injured man, 23, from Whitby, who does not wish to be named, was employed to help cut forage maize at Skipsters Hagg Farm, at Appletonle- Moors, near Pickering, North Yorkshire, on November 9, last year.

Paramedics were forced to amputate his leg at the scene after it was caught in a harvesting machine as he tried to clear a blockage while the blades were still rotating.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Peter Turnbull, a partner in family-run farming firm GR Turnbull and Sons, after investigating the incident.

Scarborough Magistrates’ Court heard the worker and Mr Turnbull were working in the same field, when the blockage occurred in a machine driven by Mr Turnbull.

Mr Turnbull left his seat to clear it by hand, leaving the machine running.

The worker came to assist but caught his leg in the harvester’s rotating cutting discs.

Mr Turnbull, of Grange Farm, Sinnington, near York, was prosecuted for a breach of the Provision and Use of Work Regulations 1998, for allowing someone under his control to enter a danger zone while dangerous parts were still operating.

He pleaded guilty to the charge and was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £1,698 in costs.

After the hearing, HSE inspector Charlie Callis said: “Incidents of this kind are all too common in the farming industry, and the outcomes are inevitably equally horrific.”

A representative for GR Turnbull and Sons could not be contacted for comment.