THREE bosses of a Blandford haulage company were cleared of manslaughter when the case against them collapsed yesterday.

The trio, charged after Neville and Cheryl De’Ath were killed when their car was hit by a Translact lorry in 2007, were found not guilty, midway through their trial, on the direction of the judge.

Winchester Crown Court judge Guy Boney QC directed the jury to return the verdicts after he conceded it would be impossible for them to reach a decision on the strength of the prosecution evidence.

Directors Robert Taylor, 34, from Tarrant Hinton, his father Christopher Taylor, 58, and transport planner Nicholas Read, 44, both from Pimperne, were subsequently cleared of all manslaughter charges.

However, Robert and Christopher pleaded guilty to breaching the Health and Safety at Work Act and will be sentenced for this lesser crime next month.

Polish lorry driver Maciej Szcygiecki, who previously admitted two counts of causing death by dangerous driving, has already been jailed for four years and disqualified from driving for five years.

His Translact bosses were accused of pushing drivers to exhaustion, leading to the tragic death on the A303 in Wiltshire in March 2007.

After judge Boney reviewed the prosecution’s case, he concluded a conviction was impossible as the link between driver fatigue and working hours could not be proved.

He explained: “The time was available to Maciej to rest and sleep. The evidence that Maciej was seriously deprived of sleep at the time of the accident doesn’t stand up.

“The fact is that we cannot exclude one particular cause of the accident, and that is driver error.”

Judge Boney said Maciej was accelerating up the hill and would have been changing gear in the moments before the fatal collision.

This indicated the trucker was not asleep, making it impossible for the jury to be sure driver fatigue was an issue.