After one of his employees was killed in a machine accident, the boss of a recycling firm has been found guilty gross negligence manslaughter.
Norman Butler, 60, of Prestatyn (Denbighshire), died November 2017 after getting trapped in Recycle Cymru equipment in Kinmel Bay.
Stephen Jones, 60-year-old company director, was found to not have performed his duty to protect Mr Butler.
Mold Crown Court heard Jones’s negligence was “shockingly bad”.
Before his death, Mr. Butler was a van driver for the company.
While working at the Tir Llwyd Industrial Estate, he was stuck in a baler that compresses waste cardboard into large cubes for recycling.
When he fell into the machine, he was alone in the warehouse. A colleague found his body three hours later.
An inquest hearing was told by a pathologist that Mr Butler died from massive blood loss.
An investigation was launched by the Health and Safety Executive into Jones’s death. Jones was subsequently charged with gross negligence manslaughter.
Craig Hassall, QC, the prosecution’s lawyer, told the trial that Jones operated his business “without any regard to the safety of employees”.
He said, “He had insufficient policies on paper, and they didn’t reflect what actually happened every day in the business.”
Jones, he claimed, “didn’t provide adequate training or systems of work supervision and his practices where highly dangerous.” We believe the negligence was horrendous.”
Jones and his company have already been convicted of lesser charges for failing to protect the safety and health of their employees.
He was released under bail and will be sentenced at 15 July.
