Bosley Mill Trial: Scene after fatal explosion 'like out of movies' court told

The devastation caused by a mill explosion which killed four workers and injured several others, four of them seriously, was a like a scene "out of the movies", a court has heard.

On Monday, a jury at the Nightingale court at Chester Town Hall was told that the body of chargehand Jason Shingler, 38, was never found following the blast at the Wood Treatment Ltd mill in Bosley, Cheshire, on July 17 2015.

Cleaner Dorothy Bailey, 62, maintenance fitter Derek William Barks, known as Will, 51, and mill worker Derek Moore, 62, also died in the explosion and their remains were recovered in the days following the incident, the jury heard.

Wood Treatment Ltd has admitted a health and safety offence relating to the incident but denies four charges of corporate manslaughter.

Director George Boden, 64, who the court heard was on holiday when the explosion happened, denies four counts of gross negligence manslaughter and one count of being the director of a body corporate which committed an offence under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Operations manager Philip Smith, 58, and mill manager Peter Shingler, 56, both deny a health and safety offence.

Tony Badenoch QC, prosecuting, said fire crews were called to the mill site at 9.11am on the day and arrived to find fire taking hold in the building with casualties, walking wounded with burns and about 20 shell-shocked people standing outside.

He said: "Fire officer Forshaw, now retired from Cheshire Fire and Rescue, described the scene on his arrival as a scene 'like out of the movies', with devastation everywhere.

"It was something he had never experienced in his entire career."

The court also heard that maintenance fitter Peter Lea, mill worker Claire Louise Thorley, quality control technician Robert Lowe, and heavy good vehicle driver Stuart Southern-Naylor were seriously injured.

Mr Badenoch said it took days for the fires to be suppressed and the site was treated as a rescue scene for more than a week in the hope of finding missing people alive.

He said that, over time, the entire site was cleared and searched, with more than 800 tonnes of rubble moved and police divers deployed to underground culverts.

Investigations at the site continued for the next five months, in the longest single deployment for urban search and rescue teams in this country, but the precise cause of the blast was never determined, the court heard.

Mr Badenoch said the massive explosion of wood dust may have been caused by a failure of equipment.

He said: "Whilst it is not possible, nor is it necessary, to be certain about the exact sequence of events, there is one obvious certainty.

"There was a quantity of material which was available to explode in this way - without which there would have been no explosion, there would not have been four tragic deaths, and others would not have been seriously injured."

He said the prosecution case was that principles of dealing with wood dust, a recognised dangerous substance, which were set out in regulations had not been followed by the defendants.