Bosley Wood Treatment managing director sentenced

Wood Treatment Limited and its Managing Director, George Boden, have been sentenced at Chester Crown Court after pleading guilty to offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) 1974.

Wood Treatment Limited was given a £75,000 fine for breaching HSWA S2, in failing to protect its employees from the risk of fire. 

George Boden, 64, from Stockport, was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for 18 months. He was also handed a £12,000 fine and banned from being a company director for four years.

He had previously admitted that the health and safety offence against the company was committed with his consent, connivance or neglect as Managing Director of Wood Treatment Limited (Health and Safety at Work Act, Section 37). 

The sentencing was the culmination of a three month trial involving the company, Director George Boden, Operations Manager Phillip Smith, 58, from Macclesfield, and Mill Manager Peter Shingler, 56, from Bosley.

In April, Justice May ordered the charges of corporate manslaughter and gross negligence be discontinued and directed the jury to find Phillip Smith and Peter Shingler, not guilty of any charges.

The charges related to a devastating explosion at the mill in the village on 17 July 2015 in which Derek Moore, 62, Dorothy Bailey, 62, Jason Shingler, 38, and Will Barks, 51, tragically lost their lives. 

Others were seriously injured, and the sheer scale and impact of the explosion and the loss of lives that resulted, devastated the local community.

A joint investigation was launched between Cheshire Constabulary and the Health and Safety Executive, assisted by Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service.

Boden, of Church Road, Stockport, had originally been charged with gross negligence manslaughter, but was acquitted in April.

He pleaded guilty to being the director of a company which committed an offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

The company, Wood Treatment Ltd (WTL) admitted a health and safety charge last year and was fined £75,000. WTL had been charged with corporate manslaughter but those charges were also dropped halfway through the trial.

At Chester Crown Court, judge Mrs Justice May described Boden as a “totally inadequate managing director” and said the task had been beyond him.

She added the firm was “woefully wanting” in the discharge of its basic obligations.

After sentencing, Ms Bailey’s second son, Ed, said losing their mother had left “a big hole in our lives”.

He branded the sentencing “a joke” and “a kick in the teeth”. 

“I don’t think justice has been finalised,” he said.

Jim Randall, who was working at the mill that day after a 39-career there, also attended the sentencing hearing.

“I’m disappointed,” he said. “The fines are mediocre, to say the least. I thought the sentencing was very weak indeed.

“We knew when the judge said there was no case to answer that today wouldn’t bring an end to it. It’s never going to end now for the victims.”

The exact cause of the fatal blast, in July 2015, is not known, but it was thought to have involved an explosion of wood dust, the trial heard.

Ms Bailey, 62, from Bosley, was a cleaner at the site; Mr Barks, 51, from Leek, was a maintenance fitter; Mr Moore, 62, of Goldenhill, Stoke-on-Trent, was a maintenance fitter, and Mr Shingler, 38, of North Rode, whose body was never recovered, a charge hand.

Others were said in an earlier court hearing to have received “horrendous injuries”.

Prosecutor Tony Badenoch QC said the company cut costs at the expense of safety and there was a continuing history of smouldering fires and explosions at the site.

Simon Antrobus QC, defending Boden, said just because his client had denied he was guilty of manslaughter did not mean the explosion “has not weighed on his shoulders heavily”.

He added his client was dyslexic so struggled with paperwork.