From the article The investigation also discovered that Porvair’s external safety advisor, John Whiffin, had produced risk assessments in July 2010, which stated the machines’ guards were present and acceptable. I take it the HSE's evidence must have shown that the above statement could not be substantiated i.e. guards had never been fitted due to the design of the machine or some other technical reason. As usual, we were not there and the fullness of evidence is not in the article. As you say Mr Fibble- know your limits. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS37SNYjg8w)

BJC, having been in court fairly recently I can tell you that HSE is going for full-cost recovery. In our case, which involved the death of a vulnerable person whose family was present, over half the court time was taken up with an argument about costs, which is presumably not why the family wanted their day in court. HSE wanted £85K, which included the Inspector's and Technical Expert's wages, fortunately for us the judge took the view that they would have been paid anyway and awarded £35K, John