A carpenter was on Tuesday cleared of responsibility for the death of a 17-year old labourer in a workplace accident after a court found he had fulfilled his obligations.

Matthew Bartolo died on June 4, 2015, when operating a woodworking machine used to manufacture doors at the Construct Furniture factory in Luqa.  

David Peter Blundell, 50, who had been working alongside the 17-year old, was accused of failing to take all necessary health and safety measures during the operation of the machine.  

The two had carried a sheet of wood onto the ‘table’ of the door-making machine.

The bulky machine had a barrier which however did not go right around the operating area making it accessible even when functioning. BThe barrier was 92 cm high. A court-appointed expert confirmed that the machine was fully operational.

After positioning the wooden sheet, Bartolo pressed a pedal to activate the suction mechanism. 

His supervisor, Blundell, asked him if all was okay and the teen answered “All right.”

Asked a second time, the youngster replied “okay,” making the thumbs-up sign. 

That was when Blundell pressed the start button.

Another worker who happened to witness the pair at work that day, later confirmed that the accused had checked twice to make sure that the younger worker was okay and beyond the barrier.

Once the machine was started, it worked automatically and could only be stopped by the opening of the safety barrier or by pressing the emergency button. In case of emergency, the machine stopped in 7 seconds.

The court said the person operating the machine was responsible up to the point of ensuring that no one was in danger when the machine was to be started. 

Blundell had fulfilled that obligation by twice checking both visually as well as by asking the youth working under his supervision if all was okay before pressing the start button. 

The prosecution failed to produce evidence as to what happened in those few seconds between that moment and the incident. 

In that brief interim, the victim must somehow have gone near the machine without opening the barrier. Had he done so, the machine would have stopped automatically. 

Since the safety barrier did not go all round the machine, it was accessible while in operation. 

While expressing grief at such a “tragic and unfortunate” incident, the court, presided over by Magistrate Leonard Caruana, concluded that the accused had not failed in his responsibility to ensure health and safety at the workplace. 

The accused was therefore cleared of all criminal responsibility.

Lawyers Arthur Azzopardi and Jacob Magri were defence counsel.