INVESTIGATIONS are continuing into the death of a 41-year-old foreman ground worker who died in a trench collapse.

News that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is still looking into how Neil Dunstan met his death on an east Cleveland building site in March last year was revealed minutes after an inquest jury returned an open verdict.

HSE inspector Bruno Porter said after the hearing: "A decision as to whether any prosecution action is to be taken has not been taken. We have a few more investigations to be made."

An inquest in Middlesbrough heard that the father-of-one, from Lingdale, east Cleveland, was in charge of a team of men connecting land drains on the bed of a two-and-a-half metre deep trench when one of the walls of the pit collapsed. He was engulfed by a falling wall of clay.

His workmate, Karl Buck, was buried up to chest height but survived.

Both men were employed by Middleton St George company AW Cowan, sub-contracted by housebuilders George Wimpey on the Springfield estate, at Apple Orchard Farm, near Skelton.

Specialist HSE inspector Stewart Eddie told assistant deputy Teesside Coroner Tony Eastwood: "Supports should be provided on vertical-sided trenches more than 1.2 metres deep which men are required to enter.

"In my opinion, two-metre deep trenches in any soil should not be left unsupported if men are required to enter."

He said collapse of the trench had been both foreseeable and preventable. The danger of workings collapsing was well recognised in building industry codes and in the paperwork of both George Wimpey and sub contractors AW Cowan.

Mr Eddie said: "There was a significant risk of collapse. Neither supports or battering or any stabilising measure was used. Workers should not have gone into the trench.

"In my opinion, the failures to follow the principles and measures specified in the documentation resulted in a system of work which was not properly managed and was not safe."

Mr Porter said that at no time on a dozen or so visits to the Apple Orchard site did he see any evidence of trench sheets or supports.

Peter Holmes, Cleveland Fire Brigade's watch manager at Skelton fire station, told of the desperate attempts to rescue Mr Buck and Mr Dunstan.

He said firefighters arrived at the scene of the tragedy to see colleagues of the two men "on the edge of the trench with wooden planks, trying to lever the clay off them".

Ambulance technician Tina Dyer said: "One man was trapped up to his waist in soil and the other one was trapped up to his neck and unconscious. It was clear Mr Dunstan was deceased.