Bosley Mill: Fine for owner over explosion which killed four people

A "totally inadequate managing director" of a wood mill where four people died in a blast has been fined and given a suspended prison sentence.

George Boden, 65, was given a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, and fined £12,000.

Dorothy Bailey, Derek William Barks, Derek Moore and Jason Shingler died in the blast in Bosley, Cheshire, in 2015.

The firm was fined £75,000. Matthew Bailey, whose mother died in the blast, said the fine was nothing.

He 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."

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.

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