A demolition company director whose “inexperience in the industry and ignorance of the law” caused the death of a friend and colleague has been spared a prison sentence.
One of Joseph Young’s workmen was crushed to death at the site of the former Grampian Country Pork plant in Buckie almost seven years ago when rubble stacked up against an interior wall in a disused abattoir collapsed on top of him.
Divorced father of two Stuart Thompson, who lived near his 36-year-old boss in Bacup, Lancashire, died after being crushed under tonnes of debris.
Young, who faced up to two years in prison for his role in the death, was instead ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work yesterday by Sheriff Sara Matheson at Inverness Sheriff Court.
He will also be under the supervision of social workers for the next year.
Advocate Susan Duff told the court: “Young feels deep remorse at the death of Stuart Thompson, who was a friend.
“He has lived with the knowledge of his role in Mr Thompson’s death for six years and continues to do so on a daily basis.
“Young’s lack of education was the root cause of the offence that led to Mr Thompson’s tragic death.
“He became aware that the premises were to be demolished and offered to demolish the premises for nothing in exchange for being able to dispose of the demolition materials.
“The owner of the premises agreed.”
Ms Duff, however, said Young had “limited experience in construction”, had “never worked on a demolition site before” and had “no experience in demolition”.
She added that the whole approach to the job was described by another colleague as “amateur”, adding “and it was”.
“Young did not have the education, training or experience to run the site safely,” she said.
“In short, Young’s ignorance resulted in the death of Mr Thompson. That is something he has to live with and something that he finds very difficult.”
Young did not comment after sentencing, but the court was told he intended to travel to Buckie for the first time since the tragedy to lay flowers in memory of Mr Thompson.
At a previous hearing, fiscal depute Stella Swann apologised to Mr Thompson’s family for the length of time the case had taken to come to court.
Young, of the Bacup-based SI Dismantling Ltd, admitted a breach of Health and Safety legislation whereby he failed to give his employees proper instructions to demolish the building in Great Western Road, Buckie, between October 2013 and January 2014.
The charge continued that he failed to monitor the work, provide site inductions, carry out regular inspections, failed to prevent waste materials being loaded against an interior wall and failed to implement a safe method of dismantling steel structures and walls.
Mr Thompson and a colleague went to the site on January 24, 2014 to cut up metal beams which had been taken down before the Christmas break. Three days later he was dead.
The court heard other employees at the site said they felt “it was a rush job and corners were cut”.
They said they had not received any formal training on how to carry out the demolition work and dismantling and had simply been told to “crack on”.
