Two businessmen have been jailed for the manslaughter of a worker who was crushed to death at a concrete plant.
Technician Christopher Meachen, 28, was killed at the Concrete Company on the Longwater Industrial Estate, at Costessey, Norfolk, in November 2005.
Owner Timothy Dighton, 45, and area manager Roy Burrows, 46, both pleaded guilty at Norwich Crown Court.
Dighton of Eye, Norfolk, was jailed for a year and Burrows of Poringland, Norfolk, was jailed for nine months.
'Blatant breaches'
Concrete Company, which has a head office in Peterborough and has 13 sites employing 104 staff also admitted a charge of manslaughter.
The two men and the firm also pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety regulations, at an earlier hearing in June.
The company was fined £75,000 and ordered to pay £89,000 in costs.
Mr Meachen, of Long Stratton, Norfolk, died at the Minimix plant, the Costessey branch of the Concrete Company, after becoming caught in an unguarded slew conveyer which carried aggregate and sand up to the hoppers where cement is manufactured.
He was pronounced dead at the scene. A post-mortem examination revealed he had died from multiple injuries.
"These blatant breaches of health and safety, or indeed lack of any systems to address health and safety issues, can and do lead to fatal injuries"
Mr Meachen was due to marry his fiancee, the mother of his three children in the summer of 2006.
He had been working at the concrete plant as a technician for two months.
Det Insp Richard Graveling, of Norfolk Police, said: "These blatant breaches of health and safety, or indeed lack of any systems to address health and safety issues, can and do lead to fatal injuries, as we have seen in two cases in the last four years, and we will deal with them as major crimes.
"These convictions should send out a message to other employers in the area that they are fully responsible and accountable for the safety of their employees."
'Tragic death'
Justin McCracken, the Health and Safety Executive deputy chief executive, said: "Christopher Meachen's tragic and wasteful death could and should have been avoided by very simple and straightforward safety precautions.
"HSE inspectors regularly come across examples of poor health and safety standards at workplaces but the inspectors involved in this case were appalled by the total lack of basic health and safety measures at this company's site, which directly led to the fatal incident."
Judge Peter Jacobs said Dighton, 45, of Eye Green, Eye, Suffolk, had "overall control" of the plant where the emphasis was "on productivity and nothing else".
Judge Jacobs added: "Burrows (of Caustons Meadow, Poringland, Norfolk) was the manager and took on the responsibility.
"He should have known it was totally unsafe and should have not allowed it to continue."
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