TWO senior business partners have been fined £40,000 after a father of three was crushed to death in a tragic works accident.

Andrew Duckworth, 36, and his brother Neil Duckworth, 34, partners in the chartered surveyors, Smith Hodgkinson, St Thomas's Road, Chorley, employed Thomas Davies and John Lloyd who took on the victim, Graham Bennett, as a casual worker.

Mr Bennett died while dismantling a heavy chrome drum at a former tanning site in Liverpool.

Nigel Lawrence, prosecuting, at Liverpool Crown Court said Davies and Lloyd engaged casual labour to carry out a "dangerous and specialist job".

He said: "They effectively sent Graham Bennett to his death." Plant and machinery valuers and auctioneers Andrew and Neil Duckworth both pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the safety of employees under Health and Safety legislation.

They were fined £20,000 each and ordered to pay £4,820 prosecution costs payable within 28 days.

Judge Nigel Gilmour, QC, said the death of Mr Bennett, of Litherland, was "wholly avoidable".

He said the Duckworths had a responsibility for safety on the site.

He said: "It is clear that at the time of the tragedy, December 17, 1998, the Duckworths' firm's appreciation of their duties under the Health & Safety at work Act were woefully inadequate."

Christopher Kennedy, defending the Duckworths, said the company specialised in insolvency and had been appointed to auction off plant and machinery at the site. He said they accept they should have completed a risk assessment identifying the work was specialist work.

The Duckworths have since undertaken a review of their company's safety procedure and issued a statement which read:

"Since it happened we have invested tens of thousands of pounds in Health and Safety systems to ensure that we minimise the risk of this ever happening again on any of our sites.

"This investment has included the recruitment of a full-time health and safety manager. We now believe that we are now a leading proponent of safe system of work within the industrial auctioneering industry."