Preston Magistrates Court fined Smurfit Kappa £5,000 and ordered it to pay £4,204 costs on 13 October

Imran Siddiqui, the investigation inspector at the Health and Safety Executive, said: “If he (the employee) had been hit harder by the vehicle, or forced into the machine which baled the cardboard, then his injuries may have been a lot more severe.

“The company failed to control the movement of vehicles in the warehouse, despite waste materials regularly being delivered to the site. There should also have been a segregated area for pedestrians so there was no chance of anyone being injured by reversing vans.”

The company declined to comment on the incident when contacted by Packaging News.