CAV Aerospace Ltd was found guilty last week of corporate manslaughter following the death of Paul Bowers at a warehouse in Cambridge, United Kingdom.

Bowers died after a stack of metal sheets collapsed on top of him in a warehouse, trapping and crushing him.

“This company ignored repeated and clear warnings about the dangers of their stock levels, refusing to take action partly because it was considered too expensive,” said Piers Arnold, of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division. “Paul Bowers and his family have paid the price for the company’s failure to take the action that was so clearly needed. I hope that the company’s conviction today can be a small comfort to his family, and our thoughts are with them at this time.”

The Crown Prosecution Service alleged that the metal sheets, which had been delivered to the warehouse at the company’s request and for the company’s purposes, collapsed as a result of the dangerously high levels of stock in the warehouse.

Prosecutors said that the senior management of CAV Aerospace Ltd. received clear, unequivocal and repeated warnings over a sustained period of years prior to the fatal incident.

Some of the most obvious solutions were rejected on cost grounds.

The company was warned ahead of the fatal accident that there were potentially disastrous consequences if nothing significant was done about this.

Bowers, one of the most recent additions to the team, became trapped under a stack of raw sheets of metal which fell on top of him as he made his way down a designated safe walkway.

Paul Bowers’ wife Jose spoke of her “unbearable sadness” and “insurmountable hurdles to carry on living without my husband and soulmate”.

“This has taken from me an amazing and unique husband and our children have lost a very special father and stepfather,” she said.