MILL OWNER FINED £12K AFTER FOUR DEATHS
No jail term for boss after explosion at wood plant in Bosley killed four people in July 2015
THE owner of a mill where an explosion killed four workers has been fined £12,000 after admitting a health and safety offence.
However, George Boden escaped an immediate jail term after being sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for 18 months.
The blast at the wood mill in Bosley in July 2015 killed maintenance fitter William Barks, aged 51, of Dalehouse Road, Cheddleton; cleaner Dorothy Bailey, aged 62, from Bosley; mill worker Derek Moore, aged 62, of Colclough Lane, Goldenhill; and charge-hand Jason Shingler, aged 38, of Sycamore Avenue, Congleton, whose body was never recovered.
Speaking after the hearing at Chester Crown Court on Friday, Mrs Bailey’s son Matthew described the fine as “nothing”.
The 44-year-old said: “It’s been nearly six years.
“It’s every day you wake up and think about your parents and if this nightmare is ever going to end. He’s not shown any remorse.”
Boden, of Church Road, Stockport, had originally been charged with gross negligence manslaughter, but was acquitted of that charge in April.
It came after a judge ruled there was not enough evidence to prove that gross negligence caused the explosion, because so much of the site had been destroyed by the blast.
Following the ruling, he pleaded guilty to being the director of a company which committed an offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
Sentencing him, Mrs
Justice May said Boden was a “totally inadequate managing director”.
“The task was simply beyond him,” she said. “He should never have been health and safety director or managing director of a business which required a very much more knowledgeable and effective hand on the tiller.”
The judge also branded Wood Treatment Ltd, the company he ran, “woefully wanting” in discharging its basic obligations.
The firm was fined £75,000 for breaching health and safety legislation in failing to protect its employees from the risk of fire.
Tony Badenoch QC, prosecuting, said the company cut costs at the expense of safety and there was a “continuing history” of smouldering fires and explosions at the site.
Photos and videos of the inside of the mill before the fatal explosion in 2015 showed wood dust piled up around machinery.
Mr Badenoch added: “In our submission, the company and the managing director ignored concerns that were raised by employees and third parties.”
Simon Antrobus QC, representing Boden, said: “Just because he has always denied he was guilty of manslaughter, it doesn’t mean that what happened on that terrible day has not weighed on his shoulders heavily throughout the last six years.”
He said Boden was dyslexic so struggled with paperwork and, although he was the health and safety director, the “real power” in the company lay with his younger brother Charles. Dominic Kay QC, defending Wood Treatment Ltd (WTL), said £2.5 million was spent after Boden and his brothers bought the business after it went into administration in 2008.
He said: “This wasn’t a case of WTL doing nothing.
It was trying to turn this company, which had failed and failed badly under the previous owners, turn it round, but it wasn’t a quick exercise.”
Speaking after the case, Detective Chief Inspector Paul Hughes, who led Cheshire Police’s investigation into the tragedy, said: “The incident that day tore the heart out of the local community and resulted in a long and exhausting journey for those who lost loved ones and also those who suffered life-changing injuries.
“Following the incident, our teams worked tirelessly to provide an extensive file of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service, who authorised the charges and a trial began in January. The families will never forget what happened that day and, while this is not the outcome that they had hoped for, I hope that this will, in some way, help to bring some form of closure for them.”
Sally Nicholson, the Health and Safety Executive’s head of operations for the North West, said: “Wood Treatment Ltd and its director failed to ensure the health and safety of their employees, exposing them on a daily basis to the risk of a wood dust explosion, through lack of appropriate assessment and control.”
Boden has since been disqualified from being a director for four years.
Two co-defendants - mill manager Peter Shingler, aged 56, of Tunstall Road, Bosley, and operations manager Philip Smith, aged 58, of Raglan Road, Macclesfield - were found not guilty of a health and safety offence following the trial.