Brickie's widow attacks sentences

The tearful widow of a British bricklayer killed on a German building site yesterday condemned as too lenient the sentences passed on two construction bosses who caused his death, after a German court upheld her private prosecution.

Len Stacey, 49, died instantly after falling from the third storey of an apartment block he was helping to build in the former East Germany in 1994.

A British sub-contractor, David Carter, was given a five-month suspended prison sentence and fined pounds 2,825, and the director of a German construction firm was fined pounds 4,950, after the court found them responsible for Mr Stacey's death.

An industrial safety inspector told the court that scaffolding and safety rails were absolutely necessary at the site, and that the two defendants, as experienced businessmen, would certainly have known they were needed.

He said: "In my long experience, I have never seen conditions like those on the building site."

Both Carter and a director of German contractors ABN were found guilty of negligent manslaughter.

The case was the first involving a foreign worker killed on a German site to reach the courts and will set a precedent which may lead to a flood of prosecutions.