Anthony Smith and Yvonne Barret, directors of First Packaging North West and First Packaging, which was dissolved in February, were fined more than £1,000 between them and ordered to pay £4,000 in costs after pleading guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Trafford Magistrates Court heard that the two directors were ordered to install guards on paper rollers traditionally used by the newspaper industry because no guards had been provided to prevent workers’ hands being pulled in by the rotating machinery.

Initially an improvement notice was served to First Packaging on 14 January 2008, but when the site was revisited in August 2009 guards had still not been installed.

According to the HSE, inspectors were informed that the site would be closing, so no further action was taken.

However, in early 2010 HSE discovered that First Packaging had actually moved to new premises, and was still using the same machine. Two prohibition notices, stopping work immediately, and another four improvement notices were issued.

First Packaging then stopped trading and Smith set up First Packaging North West. However, guards were still not fitted to the machines and another five improvement notices were served in February 2011.

HSE Inspector Alex Farnhill said: "The two directors deliberately set out to avoid complying with the legal warnings we issued, allowing their employees to continue to operate dangerous machinery.

"The risk of workers’ hands being pulled into unguarded moving machine parts and belt drives is well known in the manufacturing industry. It’s only luck that none of Mr Smith and Mrs Barrett’s employees were injured in this case.

"It beggars belief that they chose to put workers at risk of serious injury after enforcement notices had been served, deciding to put profit over the safety of their employees. We had no choice but to prosecute when they continued to deliberately and flagrantly ignore the formal warnings."