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By Press Association 2021
Bosley Wood Flour Mill explosion scene
A mill owner has been cleared of gross negligence manslaughter after an explosion which killed four workers, but has admitted a health and safety offence.
The blast at the wood mill in Bosley, Cheshire, on July 17 2015 killed cleaner Dorothy Bailey, 62, maintenance fitter Derek William Barks, known as Will, 51, mill worker Derek Moore, 62, and chargehand Jason Shingler, 38, whose body was never recovered.
Owner George Boden, 64, and the firm Wood Treatment Ltd had been on trial at the Nightingale court at Chester Town Hall since early February.
On Thursday, judge Mrs Justice May told the jury to return not guilty verdicts in respect of the four counts of gross negligence manslaughter Boden was charged with and four counts of corporate manslaughter which Wood Treatment Ltd had been charged with.
THE owner of a mill in Cheshire been cleared of gross negligence manslaughter after an explosion which killed four workers, but has admitted a health and safety offence. The blast at the wood mill in Bosley, on July 17, 2015, killed cleaner Dorothy Bailey, 62, maintenance fitter Derek William Barks, known as Will, 51, mill worker Derek Moore, 62, and chargehand Jason Shingler, 38, whose body was never recovered. Owner George Boden, 64, and the firm Wood Treatment Ltd had been on trial at the Nightingale court at Chester Town Hall since early February. Today, (Thursday, April 29) judge Mrs Justice May told the jury to return not guilty verdicts in respect of the four counts of gross negligence manslaughter Boden was charged with and four counts of corporate manslaughter which Wood Treatment Ltd had been charged with.
BBC News
Published
image captionDerek William Barks, Derek Moore, Jason Shingler and Dorothy Bailey died in the 2015 explosion
Manslaughter charges have been dropped against the owner of a wood mill where four people died in a blast.
George Boden was a director of Wood Treatment Ltd in 2015 when the explosion happened at Wood Flour Mills in Bosley, Cheshire.
Corporate manslaughter charges against the firm have also been dropped.
At a special Nightingale Court at Chester Town Hall, Mr Boden pleaded guilty to a health and safety offence.
The exact cause of the fatal blast is not known, but it was thought to have involved an explosion of wood dust, the trial heard.