The manager of a fruit-packing operation has been found guilty of the manslaughter of two workers he asked to select apples from a low-oxygen storage unit without using breathing apparatus.



Scott Cain, 23, who was engaged to be married to the mother of his young child, and Ashley Clarke, 24, were found unconscious on top of crates of apples at the Blackmoor estate in Liss, Hampshire, on 18 February 2013. Efforts by colleagues and paramedics to revive them were unsuccessful.

Their manager, Andrew Stocker, 57, of Whitehill, who was on holiday in the Maldives at the time, had instructed Cain to gather fruit to enter in the Marden fruit show, held twice a year in Kent, the trial at Winchester crown court heard.

Mark Dennis QC, prosecuting, said Stocker wanted the “kudos” of winning the contest rather than the “modest” financial prizes.

He said Stocker encouraged a practice nicknamed “scuba diving”, which involved staff entering the storage units through a hatch in the roof and holding their breath while retrieving the fruit samples.

Dennis said the air in the sealed units had oxygen levels reduced to 1% to preserve the fruit and a person would die immediately after they ran out of breath while inside the cramped facility.

The accepted practice in the industry for gathering samples was to use a net to hook out the fruit, but this random selection was not suitable for picking apples of the right size for competitions, Dennis said.

Stocker had “breached his duty of care to the two young men who died and his breach amounted to gross negligence and that directly led to the tragic loss of two lives”, he said.

At an earlier hearing, Blackmoor Estate, which is owned by the Tory peer Lord Selborne, entered guilty pleas to three counts of contravening regulations under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, and pleaded not guilty to a fourth count. The charges related to failing to provide adequate emergency plans and carrying out insufficient risk assessments.

A jury of 11 men and one woman took more than 18 hours to return the manslaughter verdicts against Stocker, which the foreman said had been reached by a majority of 11 to one. The judge, Mr Justice Akenhead, adjourned the case against Stocker and the estate for sentencing on 1 July.

Akenhead said he would prepare notes on the case to be forwarded to the fruit-packing industry “to make sure these very sad events do not occur again if at all possible. I think it’s possible the apple and fruit storage industry to an extent is not aware of some of the dangers this case has thrown up in such stark form.”



Speaking after the hearing, Clarke’s father, Ian Clarke, from Emsworth, thanked the jury and said Stocker’s actions had been “beyond belief”. The 58-year-old company director said: “It has been really, really hard. We have had no closure - it’s been two years and four months.

“My wife has not been mentally strong since this happened. We will never forget him and we just try to manage the pain for the rest of our lives. The formal stage is over, we can begin to rebuild.

Speaking of Stocker, he said: “We are quite upset that someone could put someone’s lives at risk to collect apples for a competition. For me, it doesn’t make sense, it’s beyond belief. I do not think he’s a bad man but he’s left us without a son.”