A 56-year-old worker at Sappi Specialities' Blackburn paper mill, who lost all his fingers in a horrific guillotine incident, was lucky to be alive.

Blackburn magistrates heard that Harry Fishwick tripped and knocked himself out as he worked on the massive cutting machine at the Feniscowles mill. He was eventually woken by the pain as the steel blade cut his fingers off.

But prosecutor Warren Pennington told the court the situation could have been far worse if Mr Fishwick had fallen two feet further under the machine.

Sappi was fined £14,000 with £1,160 costs after pleading guilty to an offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

Mr Pennington said there had been numerous faults that had led to the accident in May last year. He said there had been poor machine maintenance, a lack of procedural control exerted by management and an inadequate understanding of the risks associated with the machine.

He said the machine, a reel splitter, had been in use at the mill since 1990 and there was no pro-active maintenance programme. The hydraulic valves which failed, leading to Mr Fishwick's horrendous injuries, had not been changed since the machine came into use. Mr Pennington said the machine is used to cut paper from a cardboard core so it can be recycled.

Mr Pennington said it had become usual for employees working on the machine to either remove a side panel and then manually move the reels or go through the gate which cut off the power and again move the reel manually.

Mr Fishwick had been cutting two reels of paper when the one furthest away from him started to move. He had gone into the machine and realigned it but on his way back tripped knocking himself unconscious.

The blade of the guillotine then started to descend at the rate of 6mm per second, eventually severing Mr Fishwick's fingers. He said the safety check valves in the hydraulic system had failed and even when the power was off the valves would not hold the blade in position as they were meant to.

From interviews with members of staff it was clear that on the average 12 hour shift an operator would expose himself to risk by realigning a reel 150 times. "This practice was in contravention of the most basic health and safety rules," said Mr Pennington.

Stephen Woods, for the company, said a significant sum of money had already been paid to Mr Fishwick as an interim payment by the insurers. He said the company accepted that the safety measures that were in place were inadequate and conceded that it should have done better.

Since the accident the machine had been substantially revamped and detailed, written safety systems were now in place along with staff training programmes. "Since the incident Sappi has been instrumental in publicising the steps they have taken through the Paper Federation and they are assisting other companies which have similar equipment," said Mr Woods.

"The company has invested a considerable amount of time and money to ensure this kind of thing cannot happen again."