Individual manslaughter convictions and prison sentences

Several directors and other employees have been convicted of gross manslaughter negligence and/or health and safety offences and received prison sentences. For example:

In July 2014, developer Eze Kinsley was sent to prison after repeatedly breaching prohibition notices put in place to ensure the safety of workers while redeveloping a former office block in Essex.

In August 2014, Hampshire businessman Paul O’Boyle, who was disqualified from being a company director, was jailed for a total of 26 months for serious fraud and safety offences. The registered director of the company involved (Aztech BA Ltd), Russell Lee, was given a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years after admitting the same breach of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (HSWA) and a concurrent six months, also suspended, after pleading guilty to aiding and abetting O’Boyle in his disqualification.

In September 2014, the Eltham-based owner of Kent scaffolding business WSS Scaffolding, Mark Anthony Hayes, was jailed for 15 months for safety failings after Grant Dunmall plunged 14 metres to his death at a site in North West London in July 2012.

In December 2014, a director of Siday Construction Ltd, a company managing the renovation of a house in west London, was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter and sentenced to three years in prison following the death of labourer Anghel Milosavlevici.

In March 2015 unemployed builder David Plant was given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months, after Craig Gray fell nine metres to his death through a fragile plastic panel at Halsall Toys Europe Ltd in July 2012.

Also in March 2015, Guthrie Melville, the skipper of the Solstice, was sentenced to nine months imprisonment for health and safety failings that lead to the death of James Irvine in Largo Bay, Fife in March 2011.

And in the same month Leeds trader Cliver Raper, trading as Bramley Asbestos Removals, was given an eight-month jail sentence, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to pay a contribution of £260 toward costs after admitting a breach of the HSWA and a separate breach of the Control of Asbestos Regulations after he exposed a household and workers to potentially dangerous levels of asbestos fibres.

In November 2014, the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) highlighted the prosecution of a former First Capital Connect train driver. He received a three-month suspended prison sentence and was ordered to pay costs of £500 after he ignored warnings and safety systems on the Cambridge to London train he was driving.