Pupils at Oakbank School, in Keighley, have been given a stark lesson in the importance of health and safety at work.

Dave Towers, from the charity Keighley Worksafe Project, visited year ten classes in the school to make them aware of health and safety pitfalls that could cost them their lives when they join the workplace.

Mr Towers’s message, illustrated through graphic and shocking real-life examples of injury and death, is that individuals as well as their employer have a responsibility for their own health and safety.

He told pupils that 77 people were killed last year in Britain on building sites alone and of one man who was pulled through a shredder machine head first and died in the 1970s.

He also told them of a chip shop employee who slipped on a wet floor and put her arm in the fryer and was maimed.

He then played them a DVD, shown to many workers by their employers, illustrating the importance of health and safety at work and simple mistakes people can make that are potentially fatal.

Afterwards, Mr Towers said: “The Government has now advised that more health and safety should be taught to pupils at school.

“In the Bradford area Keighley Worksafe Project goes around showing the material at no cost to the school.

“The pupils need to know that if an employer asks them to do something that they think is dangerous, they should be questioning it.”

Mr Towers has also done presentations at Holy Family and Parkside schools, as well as at schools in Leeds and Bradford.

He can be contacted on 07891 878261.