A FARM has been fined £28,000 after a nine-year-old boy was seriously injured in an accident on an all-terrain vehicle.

The ATV was being driven by a 13-year-old and overturned on farm land at Shebbear, trapping the younger boy’s leg between the ground and the roll over protection bars.

The boy suffered a serious lower leg break and an open wound which needed a skin graft and he spent several weeks in hospital and having physio.

A Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigation said the most likely cause of the crash was the age and inexperience of the driver who was 13 and had no formal training.

A court heard the powerful adult sized vehicle used for farm work should not have been used or travelled in by children. Signage on the machine saying children should not be carried as passengers was ignored.

EC Haste, of Shebbear, Devon, admitted a health and safety at work offence at Exeter Magistrates Court and the farm partnership was fined £28,333 and ordered to pay £5,254 in costs.

HSE Inspector Emma O’Hara said: ‘Farms are first and foremost a workplace and children should be kept safe.

‘Children should not be carried as passengers on ATVs. No child under 13 should use an ATV for work and children over 13 should only use appropriate sized lower power ATVs after formal training.’