Rail station death pair sentenced

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/england/north_yorkshire/6198393.stm

Version 0 of 1.

Two directors of a maintenance company have been sentenced after a retired York university professor was crushed to death at a railway station in Rome.

Sally Baldwin died when she fell into the mechanism under a walkway at Rome's Tiburtina station in 2003. A section had been removed for maintenance work.

Domenico Leti and Leonardo Casali, directors at maintenance firm OCS, were convicted of manslaughter.

They were sentenced on Wednesday to 22 months and 18 months respectively.

Sally was feisty, forthright, wickedly funny and cared deeply about ordinary people University of York spokesman

Under Italian law, sentences under two years are automatically suspended for first time offenders, prosecutor Roberto Staffa said.

Another director, Luana Lepore, was cleared of all charges.

The 62-year-old academic, whose real name was Sarah but who liked to be known as Sally, was the former director of the social policy research unit at the University of York.

A university spokesman said: "Although today's hearing marked the end of the legal process, the loss of Sally Baldwin will continue to be felt by her many friends and colleagues.

"Sally was feisty, forthright, wickedly funny and cared deeply about ordinary people."

In a separate trial that ended in 2004, two OCS maintenance workers were convicted of manslaughter and causing grievous bodily harm for not taking necessary measures to prevent people from using the walkway after workers had removed a section.

A rail worker was seriously injured trying to save the British woman

The pair were sentenced to 20 months and 15 months in prison, but did not serve any time.

The social policy lecturer was with her former husband Jack and another British tourist at the time of the accident on 28 October, 2003.

An Italian railway worker seriously injured his leg as he tried to rescue her.

Professor Baldwin was born in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, and joined York University in 1973.

She worked with disabled children and their family carers and was also a non-executive director of the York NHS Trust.