A Lincoln catering company has been fined more than £19,000 after a workplace injury exposed health and safety flaws.

Industrial catering equipment manufacturer Lincat Ltd, of Whisby Road, has been fined £19,400 and ordered to pay £4,845 costs after admitting its working practices fell short of what was expected.

Lincoln Magistrates' Court heard that oven assembler Rolf Cinavas suffered a groin injury and was off work for nine weeks after moving a 96kg pizza oven with a colleague.

He and his supervisor were moving five ovens, one at a time, from a waist-high assembly bench down to pallets in the floor, without mechanical lifting gear.

The company admitted breaching Section 2(3) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 by not having a clear health and safety policy statement.

Lincat also admitted twice contravening the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 by failing to make sufficient assessments of manual handling operations and not indicating to workers the weight of items to be lifted.

Lindsay Taylor, for Lincat, said that since the accident pizza ovens were now built on pallets and moved onto the floor for further assembly using mechanical lifting equipment.

She added that a full-time health and safety manager was now employed and a health and safety committee has been set up.

For more on Lincat's health and safety issues, see Thursday's Lincolnshire Echo.