Fatal blast came just months after risk alert
THE risk of a ‘devastating’ explosion at a wood mill was warned of just months before a blast which killed four workers, a court has heard.
Cleaner Dorothy Bailey, 62, maintenance fitter Derek William Barks (known as Will), 51, mill worker Derek Moore, 62, and chargehand Jason Shingler, 38, died when an explosion of wood dust destroyed the Wood Treatment Ltd mill in Bosley, Cheshire, on July 17, 2015.
On Tuesday, January 26, the second day of a delayed trial at the Nightingale court at Chester Town Hall, a jury heard a report was made in April 2015 following a visit to the mill for insurance purposes by risk analyst Richard Parslow from Zurich Financial Services.
Tony Badenoch QC, prosecuting, said the report called for action to be taken by July 1 to implement a rolling programme of cleaning to remove a build up of wood dust, which could be a ‘significant explosion hazard’.
The report said: “Whilst normal business operations do not result in significant dust explosions, there is a risk that a small explosion, or other disturbance, may cause settled dusts to become airborne, perhaps in sufficient concentration to provide an explosive mixture. Typically ‘secondary’ explosions are devastating.”
Mr Badenoch told the court: “This case is concerned with a secondary explosion which, to use the language of this report, was devastating.
“Four people lost their lives in a massive explosion at their place of work and others received horrendous injuries.”
He said the report was seen by mill owner and safety director George Boden, who is charged with four counts of manslaughter, and on July 1 a document called a Site Cleaning Works Instruction was produced. But, Mr Badenoch said whether practices on site changed following the report was a different matter. He said: “The prosecution case is that, far from attend to the issue by way of reasonable delegation as George Boden may suggest, he paid lip-service to it at best, as he had with other insurer requests previously, and work practices remained unchanged.”
The court heard Boden, who was on holiday in Canada at the time of the explosion, had signed the last available copy of the company’s health and safety policy in 2012.
Mr Badenoch said: “Failures of the kind outlined including poorly maintained machinery, piles of combustible dust and hiding things from the regulators, they are ultimately his responsibility. As are the untimely and unnecessary deaths of four workers.”
The court heard health and safety inspectors issued an improvement notice concerning wood dust and housekeeping to the mill following a visit in 2013 and issued notifications of contravention later that year and the following year.
Wood Treatment Ltd has admitted a health and safety offence but denies four counts of corporate manslaughter while Boden, 64, of Church Road, Stockport, denies four counts of gross negligence manslaughter and a health and safety offence.
Operations manager Philip Smith, 58, of Raglan Road, Macclesfield, and mill manager Peter Shingler, 56, of Tunstall Road, Bosley both deny a health and safety offence.
The trial is expected to last three months.
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