THE father of a young boy who died after a concrete bollard fell on him at the Royal Highland Show has told how he begged his son to fight for his life.

Ben Craggs was just three-years-old when the accident happened at the showground at Ingliston, near Edinburgh in 2008.

In an emotional testimony at Edinburgh Sheriff Court today, where the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland denies eight charges under the Health and Safety at Work Act, Jonathan Craggs recalled the moment he found his son.

“I kept asking 'Ben, don't go Ben. Don't leave us. Keep with us," he said.

The court heard that Mr Craggs and Ben's mother Dawn Surtees, who ran a farm and bed and breakfast near Sedgefield, County Durham, were showing cattle on the first day of the show on June 19.

Ben, who was due to turn four in six days’ time, had been with his father, looking around machinery, the jury of nine women and six men were told.

Mr Craggs, 54, had then lifted his son into the cab of his lorry to fetch his white show coat.

"I could not reach it as it was hanging up at the back of the cab so I lifted him up and he brought me my coat,” he said. “I was locking the door when a security man ran up and shouted 'Quick, there's a little boy fallen over'.

“I ran round and he was lying there".

Mr Craggs said Ben had been out of sight for just two or three seconds.

"I saw this concrete bollard lying on top of Ben's head," said Mr Craggs.

The court was told Ben had fallen, seizing hold of a rope connecting two of the concrete bollards. This caused one to overturn and strike him on the head, causing severe head injuries, as a result of which he died.

The security guard said not to lift it up in case the boy had a fracture, but Mr Craggs said he and another man did.

Fiscal Depute, Alasdair MacLeod, asked Mr Craggs: "Was Ben moving at all?"

"No," was the reply.

"Was he bleeding?" asked the Fiscal.

"Yes, coming out of his nose and ears," said Mr Craggs. Mr MacLeod asked: "Did you realise at the time that Ben's injuries were serious?"

Mr Craggs replied: "Yes, as soon as I saw the blood coming out of his nose and ears. I kept asking 'Ben, don't go Ben. Don't leave us. Keep with us."

He told the court he could not remember the ambulance arriving.

Police officers asked him to go and get his wife.

"I was just hysterical," he said. "I remember knocking one or two people over and saying 'There's been an accident'".

The couple went in a police car to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh, and were taken to a room by a doctor and left by themselves.

"A doctor came through to give us the bad news that Ben had passed away," Mr Craggs said.

The Fiscal asked: "Did the doctors let you see Ben?"

"Yes," said Mr Craggs. "They had cleaned him up. We saw him in the Chapel of Rest with a bandage round his head. We stayed there for about an hour-and-a-half."

It is alleged the agricultural society failed to ensure that moveable concrete bollards at the Showground were stabilised by clamping or other means.

Other charges allege the Society failed to take action about defects in their health and safety arrangements which were drawn to their attention by their health and safety consultants, that they employed a person as a health and safety co-ordinator who did not have sufficient competence or qualifications and did not provide him with training to undertake the job and failed to identify the risks of the bollards overturning, exposing employees or contractors and members of the public to risk of severe injury and death.

Defence counsel, Peter Gray QC, entered a plea of not guilty to all the charges, which cover the period between October 2, 2005, and November 19, 2009.

The trial before Sheriff Paul Arthurson QC was adjourned until tomorrow.