A fruit farm manager has been found guilty of the manslaughter of two young workers who were found dead after retrieving prize apples from a storage container.
Scott Cain, 23, and Ashley Clarke, 24, died after entering the tank on theBlackmoor Estate in Liss, Hampshire. The oxygen level in the tank was just 1 per cent.
Andrew Stocker, 57, of The Links, Whitehill, Bordon, was convicted by a jury at Winchester Crown Court over the deaths this morning (19 June).
The two men got into the storage tank through a small hatch in the roof, and used a practice nicknamed 'scuba diving', which involved workers holding their breath while entering the container. The practice was encouraged by Stocker, the court heard.
Cain, who the court heard was engaged to be married to the mother of his young child, and Clarke, were both found unconscious on top of crates of apples in the storage facility on the afternoon of 18 February 2013.
Efforts by colleagues and paramedics to revive them were unsuccessful, and both were declared dead at the scene.
Mark Dennis QC, prosecuting, told the trial that Stocker, who was on holiday in the Maldives at the time of the incident, had instructed Cain to gather the sample fruit while he was away, so that it could be entered in the Marden Fruit Show.
The court heard that Stocker enjoyed the 'kudos' of winning at the contest rather than claiming the 'modest' financial prizes.
A sentence has not yet been handed down by the judge.
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