A Lewisham company director has been found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence after an employee was crushed to death by a glazing panel.

Han Rao, of Naomi Street in Lewisham, was today, January 30, convicted of the offence at the Old Bailey, whilst he and his company were also found guilty of health and safety violations.

The 34-year-old will be sentenced next Tuesday for the "needless" death of Marian Iancu, 39, who was fatally crushed between a forklift truck and a damaged glazing panel whilst working in a warehouse.

Rao was the sole director and shareholder of TW, a small business providing industrial warehousing services for construction companies, but police said he was "woefully unqualified" as a manager.

On November 16, 2015, the director had asked two of his employees to break up a number of damaged glazing panels which were made of glass glass and metal, weighing a hundred kilos each.

Marian and his colleague had to tip the panels into a skip using a forklift truck before smashing them up by hand, but as he manoeuvred one panel into position, it toppled forward, crushing him against the truck.

Despite his colleagues trying to remove the panel, Marian suffered severe internal injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Following his death, police launched a joint investigation with Barking and Dagenham Council which found out Rao had no health and safety policies in place, had provided his employees with no training and had left them to carry out the work unsupervised.

Detective Constable Andy Jose, who lead the investigation, said Rao had no knowledge or experience of his duties, and had amazingly not taken any steps to find out what he was required to do.

"He had also been made aware that this was a dangerous task but had not done anything to mitigate the risks.

"In fact, he ignored all of the warning signs put to him, signs which could have prevented Marian’s needless death had he acted upon them.

"He has continually failed to admit any responsibility and in doing so put through put Marian’s distraught family through the pain of a trial. We would like to pay tribute to them for the way they have conducted themselves throughout this difficult period."

On the day of the incident, an employee of the construction company had visited the site and seen Marian and his colleague at work and warned them that what they were doing was unsafe.

They told him they had been instructed by Rao to carry out the job, and when the employee told Rao they should not been working alone and without proper equipment he simply told the workers to wear gloves.

In a moving victim statement, Marian's brother, Adrian Iancu, said: ""I know that it is extremely hard for anyone who has gone through tragic moments like this but when it happened to me at that moment, when I found out the dramatic news, I hoped that it was just a bad joke or a nightmare and the next morning I would wake up and everything would be back to normal."

He said that since that day, there had remained a black hole of unanswered questions for the family.

Adrian stated: "Our lives have been changed forever.

"Marian was a simple man, a very good son, brother and friend. It was a joy to see him playing: family quality time that we will always remember with pleasure. We will definitely miss all these moments with deep regret in our hearts."