A TEENAGE labourer died after falling 35ft down a manhole on a nuclear power plant.

Kevin Horner, 19, had been working in Olkiluoto, Finland, for just seven days when he plunged down the hole.

The teenager from Hartlepool suffered severe head injuries and was taken to hospital 30 miles away in the city of Pori.

Doctors spent five days trying to save Mr Horner as a machine kept him alive, but he died on September 23.

Kevin's uncle, Paul Jarrington, 43, from Suffolk, was his foreman on the RIMEC Group building site where Kevin fell through boards that were covering a manhole.

Mr Jarrington said: "I am devastated. I took him over there and I had to bring him back.

"He had only been over for a week.

"He was such a likeable lad and people from all over the world have been in touch to say how much they will miss him.

"I had been working with him about a year so we were very close. I had taken him to Wales to work and he was fully trained up with safety.

"He had such a promising future and was on line to make good money and he wanted to see a bit of the world but now he won't get that chance."

Mr Jarrington says he now has to go back to Finland to help with a Finnish police investigation.

He said: "It wasn't his fault. It wasn't something he was working on."

His parents, Jill and Kevin Horner, were too upset to speak about the loss of their son.

Kevin was one of five children, being brother to Kirsty, Chelsea, Jason and Jade.

A spokesperson for the Foreign Office said: "We are in contact with his family and we are offering as much support as possible."

Olkiluoto is a small island just off the coast of Finland in the Baltic Sea in the Eurajoki region of the country.

It has two nuclear power plants and a third is currently being built that will be the most powerful reactor in the world.

But it has been surrounded by controversy with groups such as Greenpeace saying the site has over 700 safety violations.

A funeral service of thanksgiving will be held for Kevin at 10.20am in Stranton Grange Cemetery Chapel on Friday.

Friends and neighbours are asked to meet at the cemetery chapel.