A PAPER and board company is being prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive following the death of a worker.

The parent company of the former Smurfit UK, based at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, is being prosecuted for failing to ensure the safety of its employees at Smurfit Paper and Board Mills in Calder Vale Road, Burnley, and the case will be heard at Reedley Magistrates on March 22.

The company, which also has sites in Blackburn and Nelson, has since been subject of a management buy-out by managing director Mark Slevin who relaunched the company last summer under the new name Papermarc.

Father-of-two Ian Holgate, 29, of St Giles Terrace, Padiham, died in January last year when he was dragged into a paper making machine.

A jury returned a verdict of accidental death at the inquest in September. They were told the 90m long machine had rollers which were going round at 100m a minute. Mr Holgate had climbed while the rollers were rotating to clear a build up of board pulp.

His colleague Ian Wills of Accrington Road, Burnley, told how he saw a piece of pulp fly up into Mr Holgate's glove and the next thing he was sucked into the machine. Mr Wills ran and shouted to everyone to turn the machine off, but it was too to save Mr Holgate.

Various members of management told the inquest they were unaware staff cleaned the machinery by hand while the machinery was working.

But workers insisted bosses were aware of the method of working and they had voiced their concerns on more than one occasion.

Shift manager Clifford Ashworth has worked for the company for 26 years and told the inquest when the machine was installed in 1979 there was another accident when a worker was dragged through the machine. He was seriously injured and never worked again. The company has now fitted padlocked gates and guard rails on the machine preventing access. If the gates are opened during production the machine automatically switches off.

No-one from Papermarc was available for comment.