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JAILED: David Ells (left) and Vincenzo Casale at Manchester Crown Court
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Bus bosses jailed for lies
8/ 7/2008
TWO bus bosses have been jailed for lying to an inquiry set up after a man was killed in an accident involving one of their double deckers.
Vincenzo Casale, managing director of Gorton-based GM buses and UK North, and his transport manager, David Ellis, were both jailed for 15 months.
The pair ran the company when 27-year-old sign writer Martin Pilling was killed when one of their vehicles struck a cherry picker crane he was working on.
He was thrown out of the cabin and under the wheels of the double decker as he erected a sign on a building in Rusholme in November 2006.
His death triggered an inquiry by the Traffic Commissioner and the company was ordered to take its fleet off the road over safety fears. As a result the company went bust.
Manchester Crown Court heard how the pair presented a web of lies to the inquiry over the number of hours their drivers worked.
They provided fake spreadsheets and deleted databases in a bid to cover their tracks.
But despite their crooked efforts investigators uncovered some startling findings.
They found that the Polish driver of the vehicle involved in the collision which killed Mr Pilling had been working for 19 consecutive days - six more than the legal limit.
They also uncovered that one driver had been working for 31 days without a 24-hour break.
The inquiry found that many drivers were going without training. The firm had undergone a huge expansion in 2005 and employed high numbers of Polish drivers. Double decker buses are not seen in Poland and most had not driven one before.
Sentencing the pair, Judge Martin Steiger, QC, said they should bear 'moral responsibility' for Mr Pilling's death. He described their dishonesty as 'extremely serious'.
He said that although the driver's long hours could not be pinpointed as the cause of Mr Pilling's death, the fact he had been working for 19 consecutive days remained.
He described their trickery as 'a deliberate attempt to mislead a public official.'
Casale, 44, of Meadowfield Close, Glossop, was banned from becoming a company director for 10 years. Ellis, 37, of Southfield Close, Dukinfield received the same ban for five years.
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8/07/2008 at 16:07