Cornwall engineer guilty of hotel death safety breach

Philip Hodge and Jonathan Mingo will be sentenced on Friday

A heating engineer has been found guilty of failing to comply with health and safety regulations after a guest died at a hotel in Newquay.

But Jonathan Mingo, from St Austell, was found not guilty of manslaughter by a jury at Truro Crown Court.

Frederick Jackson, 52, from Llanelli, died from carbon monoxide poisoning at the Great Western Hotel in 2008.

Mr Mingo's colleague Phillip Hodge had previously pleaded guilty to failing to comply with health and safety rules.

The court heard earlier that Mr Jackson had been found slumped against a door in his bedroom by hotel staff on 19 April 2008.

Paramedics were called and Mr Jackson was pronounced dead at the scene.

Later in the day when the paramedics also began to feel ill, they suspected carbon monoxide poisoning and the hotel was evacuated.

The flue was just below a bathroom window

The trial heard that, several years before Mr Jackson's death, heating engineer Mingo had been responsible for overseeing the fitting of a new boiler and flue at the hotel.

The flue ended just short of a bathroom window, in one of the guest rooms.

Mingo told a colleague to screw up the window, but when the hotel was refurbished several years later, the window was changed for one that did open.

Tests on the flue after Mr Jackson's death showed how smoke from the flue could pour in through the window.

Mingo and Hodge, who was responsible for commissioning the boiler system, will be sentenced on Friday.