Cinema chain Cineworld has been fined €10,997 and ordered to pay €2978 in costs following a hearing in Court this week. 2 members of staff suffered electric shocks from a faulty portable appliance.

Cineworld pleaded guilty to two charges under the Health and Safety at Work Act after a defective popcorn machine delivered electric shocks to two separate members of staff.

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

Unfortunately, the machine was not Pat Tested or 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 a 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 portable appliances to be carried out by a trained and competent member of staff, or outsourced to a reliable PAT testing or facilities management company.

Article originally posted on Mirror Uk