{"id":446008,"date":"2026-05-26T12:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/446008\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T12:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T12:42:12","slug":"waste-shredder-death-gisborne-business-fined-paying-reparations-after-fatal-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/446008\/","title":{"rendered":"Waste shredder death: Gisborne business fined, paying reparations after fatal accident"},"content":{"rendered":"

A perimeter guard with interlocked access means an access point tied to the machine\u2019s operation, one that would automatically shut down the entire waste shredder if it were opened.<\/p>\n

The likely cost of installing the engineering solution of a perimeter guard with interlock access was around $10,000 to $20,000 plus GST.<\/p>\n

Judge Cathcart\u2019s reserved sentencing decision was released at the end of last week, following a sentencing hearing in the Gisborne District Court<\/a> this month.<\/p>\n

The business was ordered to pay a fine of $420,000 and reparation of $140,000 for Dooling\u2019s family.<\/p>\n

He found M.E. Jukes & Son\u2019s culpability was at the \u201cvery top end\u201d of the medium culpability band, setting a starting point for the fine at $600,000.<\/p>\n

Mitigating factors taken into account to arrive at the final figure were the payment of reparation, the remorse of company owner Trevor Jukes, his good character as a \u201cwell-respected businessman\u201d in Gisborne, and the company\u2019s co-operation with the WorkSafe investigation.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe shredder involved in the 2022 death of Maurice Dooling in Gisborne. Photo \/ WorkSafe NZ<\/p>\n

Judge Cathcart also awarded $10,000 for the cost of WorkSafe\u2019s expert witnesses.<\/p>\n

The company was directed to pay half the fine within 28 days and the balance monthly over the next 12 months.<\/p>\n

The Gisborne Herald contacted defence counsel for the case Edwin Boshier and Daniel Robinson of law firm Duncan Cotterill. <\/p>\n

“Neither we, Mr Jukes, nor the defendant company have anything further to add at this time,” Robinson said. <\/p>\n

WorkSafe, in a statement, said the case \u201crepresents a watershed for machine safety\u201d.<\/p>\n

WorkSafe\u2019s central regional manager, Nigel Formosa, said companies should put systems in place to protect people regardless of what was around them because the law placed the primary duty of care on the business to manage risk.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaurice Dooling did nothing wrong, and the court found that the company failed him.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen workers are operating dangerous machinery, businesses cannot rely on training and procedures alone to keep them safe. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn this case, the court found that automatically stopping the machine when a worker got too close was a straightforward, affordable fix. There was no good reason not to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Formosa said the incident should prompt every business operating industrial machinery to take a hard look at its own sites.<\/p>\n

WorkSafe outlined a series of steps to take if a business was unsure:<\/p>\n

Check your guarding.Get advice if you are unsure.\u00a0Do not rely on procedures alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A perimeter guard with interlocked access means an access point tied to the machine\u2019s operation, one that would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1081,74,1558,138,1656,634,12474,11784,19631,5504,12506,42,24176,671,1404,43,19719,17096,227292,169199,2742,40,38,41,39,25361,12767],"class_list":["post-446008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-accident","tag-after","tag-been","tag-business","tag-company","tag-death","tag-dollars","tag-fatal","tag-fined","tag-following","tag-gisborne","tag-headlines","tag-hundreds","tag-incident","tag-industrial","tag-news","tag-ordered","tag-paying","tag-reparations","tag-shredder","tag-thousands","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-waste","tag-worker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}