A FATHER-OF-TWO who was working on a warehouse roof died from a fall after his firm failed to provide adequate safety equipment, a court heard yesterday.

Stanley Dawson, 50, a married man, died from severe head injuries after falling 25ft on to a concrete floor while working for Hartlepool firm Factory Cover, Simon Jackson, prosecuting, told Teesside Crown Court.

John Elders, 48, of The Green, Elwick, near Hartlepool, the owner of the firm, is charged with manslaughter. The firm is also jointly charged with manslaughter. Both deny the charge.

Mr Elders is also charged with two breaches of the 1974 Safety at Work Act, which he also denies.

Factory Cover admitted the charges of failing to make an adequate risk assessment of the safety of their employees and failing to provide adequate safety equipment.

Mr Jackson told the jury that Mr Dawson was working for Factory Cover at a former ICI warehouse in Billingham, Teesside, leased by Nicholsons Transport, and was replacing skylights on May 13 last year. The only safety equipment provided, he said, were seven safety boards which were 2ft wide.

It appeared, he said, Mr Dawson had died after losing his balance and fell through a skylight.

He said Mr Elders, as a hands-on director of the company, knew the roof and skylights were fragile, but had not provided safety harnesses, a safety net or other measures which would have prevented the accident, or minimised its effects.

He said: "There was gross disregard for the safety requirements for working on such a fragile surface."

In police interview, Mr Elders said there had been no harnesses because there was nowhere to fix them.

When he left at lunchtime, he said, he had told the men not to go back up on the roof until he got back, but they had.

The case continues.