A property developer who appeared on TV’s Secret Millionaire was jailed for the manslaughter of a carpenter working on one of his building projects.
Mr Clark, 55, went into a coma, was paralysed and died a month later after falling five metres through a void in a first-floor ceiling in September 2014 while Holland was holidaying in Spain.
Mr Clark’s fiancee, Beverley, told the Lewes Crown Court at Hove Trial Centre her life ended when he died – just two days after they got engaged.
‘He died too soon, his loss will be felt forever,’ she said, adding she would be happier if she went to bed and did not wake up rather than continue to face life without him.
Property mogul Holland – dubbed the saviour of Brighton – appeared on TV’s The Secret Millionaire and was jailed for the manslaughter of Dave Clark
Beverly Clark said she’d rather go to be and not wake up than go on living her life without her fiance
‘Dave was real, he was my love, my rock.’
The 52-year-old, who got engaged to Mr Clark just two days before his ‘unnecessary death’, described the anguish she was still enduring.
She said she now leads a double existence in which her smiles are fake and her laughs are hollow as she tries to make sense of a world without him.
She spoke candidly and with dignity in court about the moment she learned the ‘big, clever, funny man’ would be paralysed if he survived.
Beverly, who changed her surname to Clark when he died, had been planning to renovate a house in Hove with her fiance.
The Health and Safety Executive warned Holland his Stanmer Park stables development was dangerous a year before.
Mike Holland and his site foreman Grant Oakes were handed nine-month prison sentences after a jury found them responsible for Dave Clark.
Dave Clark, who fell through a void on the site before slipping into a coma, becoming paralysed and eventually dying
Holland, of King’s Road, Brighton, and Oakes, of Elm Drive, Hove, were found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence.
Known as the saviour of Brighton for his developing in the seaside town, he appeared on the reality show in 2012 helping at a charity called FLAG (Family Links Around Grimsby).
Following his appearance on the show, he told Sussex Life about the emotional impact of meeting parents who’d named a charity after their dead daughter, after his own son, Brian, had died aged 13.
Cherrywood Investments, now known as Threadneedle Estates, which is owned by Holland, was fined £120,000.
He waved to his fifth wife Wendy, while Oakes blew a kiss to his crying partner as they were taken to the cells.
Holland was ordered to pay £35,000 in court costs while Oakes must pay £10,000.
In addition, Holland was handed a five-month concurrent sentence after admitting failing to discharge his duty under health and safety laws, for which his company also accepted culpability.
Inspectors warned Holland that his site wasn’t safe one year before Mr Clark died falling through the first-floor void
Holland was jailed after being found guilty of manslaughter following the death of a carpenter working on his site
Oakes was also handed an eight month concurrent sentence after being found guilty of the same offence.
The court heard Mr Clark’s family has launched a civil lawsuit.
Lifelong Glasgow Rangers fan – nicknamed Brighton Dave – was known as happy, generous and upbeat.
On emerging from the coma, doctors said he would have to learn basic life skills again.
Ms Clark described watching him slowly die as an experience she would not wish on her worst enemy.
She described a painful and lengthy wait for the criminal justice system to take its course, all the while knowing her beloved husband-to-bed had been buried ‘incomplete’ because his brain and spinal chord had to be preserved for evidence.
She said relatives of the defendants treated proceedings ‘flippantly’, even making jokes about health and safety in the court room with what had appeared to be an ‘arrogant air and disregard for a man’s life’.
Foreman Grant Oakes was also jailed after Mr Clark – known as Brighton Dave – was killed at the site in Hove
Mr Clark’s relatives were inundated with messages of support during his four weeks of care in St George’s Hospital, London.
He had a severe brain injury and slipped in and out of a coma while he was treated in a head injury specialist centre.
He was moved to the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton where he died just under a month later.
Nearly a thousand people attended his funeral in Hove.
Holland, who was born in Bromley, London, leapt to the defence of his company and said the accident was Clark’s own fault.
Holland and Oakes were charged in March last year and stood trial in May in a case brought by the police and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), after two years on bail.
The court heard the criminal lack of care had left staff to work in dangerous conditions.
Health and safety inspector Denis Bodger turned up unannounced in September 2013 and found ‘extremely poor standards’ for work being carried out at height in the west wing.
Holland was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence after the carpenter fell to his death on one of his projects
He issued a warning notice specifically about the first floor of that stable block, which is similar to the east wing where Mr Clark fell a year later.
Following a re-trial the jury returned guilty verdicts in June.
Her Honour Judge Christine Laing said: ‘This was not a mistake or an error of judgement, it was an inexplicable failure to address an issue you had been warned would cause serious injury or death.
‘You both owed a duty of care to all those working on the site.’
She said the earlier warnings were a ‘blueprint’ for how to keep their staff safe but they left the site in a dangerous condition.
Judge Laing said: ‘Had I seen evidence you both accepted and understood your responsibilities for what happened, I may have been able to suspend the sentences.’
Born in Bromley, London, Holland left school with no qualifications and joined the Merchant Navy before moving to Brighton aged 18.
His investments in Brighton included homes, a private school and a newspaper.