Worker's homemade device 'may have started fatal fire'

SP Plastics in Baswich, Stafford, was destroyed on 30 October 2014

A fireworks factory owner accused of manslaughter told jurors a man who died may have been carrying a "homemade" firework which set off the fatal blaze.

Simon Hillier and Stewart Staples died in the fire at SP Fireworks in Baswich, Stafford, on 30 October 2014.

Company director Richard Pearson, 44, told Stafford Crown Court he learnt Mr Hillier kept fireworks in his garage and "friction" may have set one off.

CCTV footage showed an explosion which lit fuses on other devices, he said.

Mr Pearson, of Rowley Park, Stafford, denies two counts of manslaughter by gross negligence in failing to take reasonable care in the storing and handling of explosives.

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'White flash'

Mr Hillier, 41, an employee of the company, and customer Mr Staples, 57, both from Hednesford, Staffordshire, died from inhaling combustible products after the fire engulfed the industrial unit.

Mr Pearson, who was badly injured in the incident, told the court he had been informed a year after their deaths that Mr Hillier had stored products in his garage for a display.

Mr Pearson, of Rowley Park, Stafford, denies two counts of manslaughter by gross negligence in failing to take reasonable care in the storing and handling of explosives

Giving evidence in his defence, he said: "I have come to the conclusion that he [Mr Hillier] may have had some of his homemade devices in his possession.

"As he came down the stairs one of them has failed through friction - and that has created a white flash but didn't detonate, didn't make the big bang."

Stewart Staples (L) and Simon Hillier (R) died in the fire

Mr Pearson said he believed as the device failed it did not function properly and spewed out "a lot of hot gases."

"That then lit the green fuses on other devices, whether they were rockets or tubes or whatever he had got," he told the court.

The trial continues.