ENGINEERING boss Allan Turnbull has been jailed for three years for the manslaughter of a 53-year-old demolition worker at a North-East shipyard.

The 61-year-old was sentenced today at Newcastle Crown Court following the death of Kenneth Joyce, from Lanchester, County Durham.

During a month-long trial, which ended last week, the court heard Mr Joyce died after falling 30ft from a hydraulic platform after it was hit by a falling girder before a metal beam fell on him.

The work involved dismantling steel buildings at the Swan Hunter shipyard, in Wallsend, so they could be shipped to India for reassembly.

The accident happened in the ‘Burning Hall’ on December 2, 2008.

Sentencing Turnbull, Judge Paul Sloan QC said Turnbull did not have the "competence or the expertise" for the task.

“The dismantling of that building was a complex operation with a real risk of death if not performed correctly," he said.

“There was no proper step-by-step sequence of work set up. What was prepared was woefully inadequate.”

Turnbull, 61, of Inkerman, Tow Law, who owns A&H Boring and Machining, had denied gross negligence manslaughter but convicted by the jury and admitted two health and safety offences, which received no separated penalty.

Mitigating, Simon Phillips QC said: “Allan Turnbull is genuinely remorseful for the death of his friend and employee and on a continuing basis is acutely aware of the effect it has had on others.”

He had been contracted by North Eastern Marine Offshore Contracts (Nemoc), of Yarm, near Stockton, to do the work.

The company was found guilty of two health and safety breaches but as it is creditors voluntary liquidation was fined a nominal amount of £1 per offence.

Christopher Taylor, 52, of Kingswood Avenue, Jesmond, Newcastle, a former director of NEMOC, was also convicted of two charges of failing to discharge a duty under the Health and Safety Act.

He was fined £15,000 per offence and ordered to pay £50,000 in prosecution costs.

In a statement, Mr Joyce’s family said: “As his family, we are striving to honour Kenneth’s memory and are still coming to terms with the void his absence has left in our lives over the past four years.

“Above all else we have hoped for justice for him and for the intensity of the sadness and grief created by his untimely passing, to ease and lessen with the aid of this justice, along with the healing passage of time.”