A fence you can lift is not isolation: Pelagia Shetland and the palletiser jam

The palletiser jammed again. Frozen boxes of pelagic fish, metal arms, a shrink-wrapper waiting. Between 1 September and 10 October 2024 that was regular at Pelagia Shetland Ltd’s Gremista plant. On the day that matters, a supervisor cleared it the way he and one colleague had already learned: he lifted an insecure piece of fencing, stepped onto a conveyor that had stopped, and tripped a motion sensor. The belt restarted.

On 26 August 2026, at Lerwick Sheriff Court, the company pleaded guilty and was fined £420,000, plus a £31,500 victim surcharge. The Shetland Times reported the hearing the same day. The supervisor survived life-threatening injuries. This is not legal advice. It is the gap Eteva UK is asked to walk on food and processing lines: the written isolation, and the fence someone can lift.

What the court was told

The palletiser — introduced in 2023 — compressed boxed frozen pelagic fish, pushed the stacks onto pallets, and handed them to a shrink-wrapper. The injuries were life-threatening: fractured ribs; a pelvis fractured in five places; a fractured collarbone and shoulder blade; both lungs collapsed. He was airlifted to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, a week in intensive care and a second in high dependency, then rehabilitation at Gilbert Bain in Lerwick. He had no memory of the incident until six days later. He has trouble sleeping, walking, and household tasks. He remains on staff, on sick leave. Sheriff Robert Frazer said severe injury, permanent impairment, and a danger to life. The man was extremely fortunate to have survived.

They already had a lock-off

This was not a plant with no method. Gavin Anderson KC, for the defence, said a safety procedure was in place and each of the six supervisors had received clear instructions. The proper sequence was isolation: switch off the power, then go to a gate that only opens when the system is off. Faults could be raised with in-house engineering. The victim was highly trained. He and another colleague had learned a bypass for a jam. Since the incident, the defence said, procedures have been strengthened. Management would not have condoned the insecure fence if they had known.

The sheriff accepted only two people knew the fencing fault. He also said the practice placed both supervisors at significant risk. No previous convictions. A good health and safety record. Full cooperation. None of that closed the workaround. Management not knowing is the finding, not a comfort.

A fence is not isolation

A fence you can lift is a boundary. Isolation is lock-off: power off, energy held, access only when the machine cannot move. An interlock is a gate that will not open while the conveyor can run, and a conveyor that cannot run while someone is standing on it. A motion sensor that restarts the belt when a body crosses it is how the injury happened. It is not a control.

“We have a fence” answers a different question. It says someone thought about perimeter. It does not say the supervisor who owns the jam must isolate first. Eteva UK’s work on a food line is that distinction, in the hall, not in a rewrite of the SOP. They walk the last jams with the people who clear them. Which gate they used. Whether lock-off still comes first when the shrink-wrapper is waiting. Whether a mesh panel has been loose since the last service. If the unofficial access is a loose panel, the interlock is already optional. Optional interlocks are not interlocks.

What to walk this week

Jams were predictable. The machine had been stopping for weeks. The written method sent the supervisor to isolate, then to gated access, then to engineering. The actual method was faster. That is the conversation Eteva UK has with plant leads.

Hypothetical. A frozen packing hall, one palletiser, a night team. The isolation SOP is on the wall. The interlocked gate sits past the shrink-wrapper. The faster path is a mesh panel that has been loose since the last service. Walk it as if you did not write the SOP:

• Where do people actually stand to clear a jam — the gated access, or the panel that moves?
• Can a fence, a chain, or a sensor be defeated without isolating?
• Does the gate only open when power is off, and has anyone proved that this month?
• Who holds the lock-off: the supervisor on the belt, or an engineer who is not on shift?
• When did the last jam get raised to engineering, and what actually changed?

If two supervisors share a workaround, you do not have a secret. You have a system that has already chosen speed over isolation. Eteva UK is there to make that visible, then to put isolation and interlocks back in front of the jam — lock-off you can hold, a gate that stays shut while the belt can run, and a supervisor practice that matches the page or replaces it. A fence is a start. It is not lock-off. If the only proof you have is a procedure and a perimeter, you are describing Gremista before the sensor tripped.