MILLIONAIRE property developer Mike Holland and his site foreman were yesterday jailed for an “inexplicable failure” which caused a carpenter’s fatal fall. 

Judge Christine Laing handed 70-year-old businessman Holland and Grant Oakes, 46, nine-month prison sentences for being responsible for Dave Clark’s death. 

The Health and Safety Executive warned them the Stanmer Park stables building site was dangerous a year before Mr Clark fell through a void in the first floor ceiling in September 2014, suffering serious head injuries. 

The 55-year-old, who was planning to renovate a house in Hove with his fiancée Beverley, went into a coma, was paralysed and died about a month later. 

She told the court her life ended the same day and she would rather die than have to go on living without him, adding: “He died too soon, his loss will be felt forever.”

Judge Laing said: “This was not a mistake or an error of judgement, it was an inexplicable failure to address an issue you had been warned would cause serious injury or death.

“You both owed a duty of care to all those working on the site.”

She said the earlier warnings were a “blueprint” for how to keep their staff safe but they left the site in a dangerous condition. 

Barristers defending the pair attested to their good character and three witnesses were called to the stand to vouch for Holland’s philanthropy as a generous charity donor and dedicated carer for his disabled son Christopher. 

Ryan Heal, chief executive of the Rockinghorse charity, said Holland was “the most giving, generous, sincere charity donor in Sussex” but he was now a “cripple” of a man. 

Holland’s barrister John Cooper said he was a “broken man”. 
Both defendants and their families had been victims of harassment during the trial, the court heard. 

Judge Laing noted the submissions but said: “Had I seen evidence you both accepted and understood your responsibilities for what happened, I may have been able to suspend the sentences.”

Holland waved to his wife Wendy, while Oakes blew a kiss to his crying partner as they were taken to the cells. Holland’s company Cherrywood Investments, now known as Threadneedle Estates, was fined £120,000.

He has to pay £35,000 in court costs while Oakes must contribute £10,000.

Holland, of King’s Road, Brighton, and Oakes, of Elm Drive, Hove, were found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence and handed the jail terms. 

In addition, Holland was handed a five month concurrent sentence after admitting failing to discharge his duty under health and safety laws, for which his company also accepted culpability. 

Oakes was also handed an eight month concurrent sentence after being found guilty of the same offence. 

The court heard Mr Clark’s family has launched a civil lawsuit.

The Argus understands Holland has already lodged an appeal against his conviction.

CRIMINAL LACK OF CARE THAT COST BRIGHTON DAVE HIS LIFE

ON a Tuesday morning three years ago, David Clark got up, got dressed, and went to work as normal. 

Chatting away with his colleagues, he parked up and set to work on the first floor of the east wing of Stanmer Park stables. 

But within minutes of his arrival on September 30, 2014, he plummeted from the building site on to a concrete floor. 

He had been working for millionaire developer Michael Holland, who, alongside site foreman Grant Oakes, would be later convicted for the manslaughter of Mr Clark. 

When The Argus arrived at the scene as he was being flown to hospital, distressed passers-by were struggling to come to terms with what they had just seen. 

Sensing the 55-year-old, of Dyke Road Avenue, had been seriously injured and was in a critical condition, police began to cordon off the area.  At the time Holland was on holiday in Spain. 

Simon Caplin, office manager for Holland’s company Cherrywood  Investments, who later gave evidence against him in court, said the company was saddened by the news. 

He said: “We are terribly  upset.  “Our thoughts go out to David  and his family and we naturally hope he is able to make a full recovery.”

Known as happy, generous and upbeat, Mr Clark – nicknamed Brighton Dave – was well liked by many in his trade, and his relatives were inundated with messages of support.

For the next four weeks Mr Clark remained in St George’s Hospital in London.  He had a severe brain injury and slipped in and out of a coma while he was treated in a head injury specialist centre. 

He was moved to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton where he died just under a month later. 

Nearly a thousand people attended the funeral in Hove of the lifelong Glasgow Rangers Football Club supporter. 

His fiancée Beverley, put all her efforts into fundraising for causes he would have enjoyed. 

Four months passed before The Argus learned Holland – known for his adventurous property development and philanthropy around the city - and his foreman Grant Oakes had been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter. 

Holland proclaimed his innocence, leapt to the defence of his company and said the accident was Dave’s “own fault” – something the prosecution later accused him of in court. 

The pair were charged in  March last year and stood trial in May in a case brought by the police and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), after two years on  bail. 

The court heard the criminal lack of care had left staff to work in dangerous conditions.

Throughout the court proceedings the tycoon was flanked by a large cohort of supportive friends and relatives and a large team of lawyers.  Beverley Clark sat quietly through the evidence, enduring details of her loved one’s death with dignity. 

But it all became too much when the proceedings were halted, the jury discharged and a re-trial announced. 

When the jury returned guilty verdicts in June, Ms Clark said nothing would ever heal her broken heart and the only good which could come out of the prosecution was if it stopped companies “cutting corners”, adding: “You can get another job, you cannot get another life.” 

There was chaos and delays at the beginning of the sentencing hearing in Hove Crown Court yesterday because the court room was too small for the number of people who wanted to hear the proceedings. 

The trial had taken place in one of the principle, larger court rooms in Lewes but a huge crowd of people - friends, relatives and loved ones of the victim's family and defendants - attempted to pack into the smaller room after it was listed to take place in Hove.

At one point Holland's wife and brother, and Oakes' partner were asked to leave the court room because there was no space for them after being told they could not sit near the victim's family.

The defendants' barristers contested their banning from proceedings and eventually Judge Christine Laing allowed them to sit in empty seats reserved for a jury in a trial. 

Holland and Oakes were warned their building site was dangerous a year before Mr Clark’s fatal fall, prosecutor Thomas Kark told the jury. 

Health and safety inspector Denis Bodger turned up unannounced in September 2013 and found “extremely poor standards” for work being carried out at height in the west wing. 

He issued a warning notice specifically about the first floor of that stable block, which is similar to the east wing where Mr Clark fell a year later.

The Argus has since learned the HSE also issued six prohibition notices or improvement notices to Holland’s company – which changed its name from Cherrywood Investments to Threadneedle Estates – for a building in Ash Lane, Rustington, a year before the fall. 

These were handed out for  not taking steps to prevent someone falling because a scaffolding platform did not have guard rails.

'I'D RATHER DIE THAN LIVE WITHOUT HIM'

DAVE Clark’s grieving partner Beverley told the court she would be happier if she went to bed and did not wake up rather than continue to face a life without him. 

The 52-year-old, who got engaged to Mr Clark just two days before his “unnecessary death”, described the anguish she was still enduring. She said her life had ended too and she now leads a double existence where her smiles are fake and her laughs are hollow as she tries to make sense of a world without him.

She spoke candidly and with dignity in court about the moment she learned the “big, clever, funny man” would be paralysed if he survived.
On emerging from the coma, doctors said he would have to learn basic life skills again. She described watching him slowly die as an experience she would not wish on her worst enemy.

Then came a painful and lengthy wait for the criminal justice system to take its course, all the while knowing her beloved husband-to-bed had been buried “incomplete” because his brain and spinal chord had to be preserved for evidence. 

She accused relatives of the defendants treating the proceedings “flippantly”, even making jokes about health and safety in the court room with what had appeared to be an “arrogant air and disregard for a man’s life”.

She said: “Dave was real, he was my love, my rock. 
“He died too soon, his loss will be felt forever.”