22/12/2016 Points West

The verdict in the trial of a deadly crash -

the driver of the truck that killed four people is cleared.

Two others are guilty of manslaughter.

We'll ask if there are other companies operating on the roads

A haulage boss and a mechanic from Wiltshire are facing long

prison sentences after a runaway tipper-truck crashed in Bath,

Matthew Gordon and Peter Wood were both found guilty of manslaughter

But the young driver of the truck, Phillip Potter, broke down in tears

Our Bath reporter, Ali Vowles, has been following the case.

Tonight, I'm at the bottom of Lansdown Lane looking up

at where the accident happened, just yards from Bath

and North-East Somerset's largest primary school.

The owner of Grittenham Haulage, Matthew Gordon, was driving a truck.

He was followed by his new driver, 19-year-old Philip Potter,

who at the time, of course, did not know that he was

As he was coming down the steep Lansdown Lane his brakes failed.

He hit and killed four-year-old Mitzi Steady, then struck a car

killing chauffeur Steve Vaughan and his passengers,

Today, Mitzi's family have said nothing can bring their daughter

back and they will miss every day for the rest of their lives.

They added that this verdict sends a clear message that

when noncompliance results in injury or death, excuses and lies will not

stand in court and serve only to cause further upset

The widow of Steve Vaughan has spoken of her absolute devastation

of losing her husband just six months after they were married.

I think a spark has definitely gone out in my heart,

Gordon and Wood were today refused bail and remanded in custody.

They will receive their sentence on 27th January.

The man driving the truck that night was Philip Potter,

a 19-year-old farmer's son from Wiltshire.

But today he was acquitted - the jury decided he was the victim

He spoke exclusively to our Social Affairs

The hardest bit is when you go to sleep, is just seeing the carnage

unfolding in your head when it happened.

It's like you press replay in your head every night

you go to close your eyes and you just see it.

Walking free from court today, the driver of the tipper-truck,

Philip Potter, broke down in tears after being cleared

It was just under two years ago that his life was to change forever.

The 19-year-old worked on his family's farm.

To earn extra money, he had taken an apprenticeship

with this distant cousin Matthew Gordon at

He was only days into the job when he climbed into the truck

and followed his new boss out of yard.

I could see that we were coming into a 20 so I applied

the brakes a little bit more and there was just nothing.

It was holding, but it wouldn't slow down any more.

I slammed it into a lower gear and tried the handbrake - nothing.

I just held my hand on the horn and just locked my arms solid

because I didn't know what else I could possibly try and do.

I just wanted to warn people that there was a lorry

By the time he managed to stop the truck, four people were dead.

Philip Potter was taken to hospital, where his mother confirmed to him

Do you remember when they told you that Philip had been driving

He was in a hell of a state and they told me then

that there were fatalities before I went in to see him and he said,

Do you think about those people who died?

We had trees planted on the anniversary

We had the vicar in to bless them because we thought

Four young trees to mark the four lives lost.

This one is for Mitzi because when it's blooming it comes out pink.

It's always going to be here for the rest of my life.

It might just be me that might know about them,

but in my heart I know what they are there for.

A quiet minute, come up and just think about

Yeah, in a way because if I hadn't have been in the lorry then it

wouldn't have been me, but it could have happened to any

driver that was in it because of this state of the lorry.

Philip Potter says he will never forget those terrible

He knows that he can never rewind the clock,

but after today's verdict clearing him from any crime,

30-year-old Matthew Gordon was Philip Potter's boss.

After the crash, Gordon, admitted eight offences of exceeding

driving hours in the three months before the accident.

His company pleaded guilty to 33 similar offences.

Last September, the Traffic Commissioner disqualified him

and took away his operating licence for two years.

Scott Ellis reports on the lorry boss and the mechanic

who are tonight awaiting a prison sentence.

As this tragedy unfolded, Matthew Gordon knew he was guilty.

Deciding amid the loss of life not to call the emergency services

or admit to a police officer he owned the overturned truck

and telling the injured driver not to mention a brake warning light

was on, before disappearing back to his lorry yard.

Grittenham Haulage was based here on White's Farm,

near Brinkworth in Wiltshire in that green building.

It was the first time Matthew Gordon had run a company and in court

we learned it was a shambles from start to finish,

a company that had no grip on how to maintain a fleet of lorries.

The jury were shown photos of these bodged brake repairs

Gordon said he didn't cut corners when it came to maintenance.

The jury, and this Wiltshire HGV instructor, think otherwise.

It could cost you up to about ?1,000 per truck per month and just simply

by not doing maintenance properly you cut those costs.

This driver worked for Gordon and says he rushed drivers to get

When I did work for him it was, like, I've got to get here,

Mattthew Gordon's mechanic, Peter Wood, here on the left,

He recorded no defects on the lorry's brakes

when he inspected it just a few weeks before the crash.

The Freight Transport Association represents hauliers.

I asked James Hookham from the organisation if the rules

on lorry safety in the UK were tight enough.

Well, the British operating licence system is one of the longest

established and one of the most demanding standards for goods

vehicle operation in the whole of Europe and, in our experience,

So it does send rather a big alarm bell to the industry, then.

I think it will remind responsible operators that these standards

are taken very seriously and I don't think we should underestimate

the severity of the verdicts that were brought in.

They are verdicts for manslaughter, which are some of most serious

charges that can be brought against an individual

So this isn't just a technical breach of the regulations,

this is only a few degrees short of murder.

So these are very serious charges that these individuals have

Would you say there are other operators

Well, if there are, I hope they are feeling very uncomfortable

by the verdicts of the court and that they take immediate steps

to address and review what they are doing to ensure

that they do meet the standards that are required of them.

It comes down to the individual responsibility of those granted

a licence to actually do what they promised to do.

I am sure that this will send an important and urgent reminder

to all those involved in the industry that these standards

are taken very seriously and must be adhered to.

There are more of today's other stories on the BBC News website

and on your local BBC Radio stations where you are.

For now, I'll say goodnight and leave you with Ian,

Tomorrow will be turning a windy day and it will have a wet phase as well

as forgetting to the afternoon. Prior to that that should be a lot

of dry weather about and it should be comparatively mild, despite

turning increasingly windy. For the rest of the night temperatures

dropping down to between one and three Celsius. The wind will pick

up. Prior to then we could get that touch of frost trying to form. Some

fog has been trying to form ready. At first light tomorrow, dry start

with the wind will be a feature. The black arrows are the gusts of wind,

and it will be dry through the morning. There is a yellow warning

from the Met office tomorrow for the squally winds. They could touch 50

were 60 mph. After that we will start to see the skies clearing

through the evening. Bar 12 showers, it will be dry. Temperatures getting

up the side tomorrow as 11 Celsius. It will turn chilly as we head into

Christmas itself, it's not white, but it's

warm. Temperatures could reach