Inquest begins after roofer fell to his death at Headcorn building site
16:54, 25 June 2019
updated: 14:49, 13 September 2019
An inquest has begun after a roofer plummeted to his death after falling from scaffolding.
Mark Tolley, of Northumberland Road, Maidstone, tragically passed away on July 13, 2017 after the fall.
Jurors heard how the 51-year-old was found on the ground at a building site in Smarden Road in Headcorn after his descent.
He managed to stand after the fall but fell to the ground unable to breathe and later died at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford.
A close friend and colleague Daniel Morrison claimed that he had noticed floorboards and poles removed from the scaffold, to allow easier access to the inside of the timber-framed home they were working on.
He said:"Together we were working on the day of the accident. We were walking on a scaffold along the building where there were bouncy boards, where people had removed poles a few days before."
According to the 27-year-old labourer the boards, which bounced from being unsecured, were widely discussed by the workers on-site but not reported to the site manager - who Mr Morrison alleged was absent for a majority of the time.
He also alleged that they didn't get a proper induction to the site - which would have covered safety procedures.
Assistant coroner Sonia Hayes asked: "So on this particular site, people were making adaptions to the scaffold and not telling people?"
"Yeah, that's not normal."
"Did you see anything else that wasn't right?"
"No handrails across any holes."
"Did you sign in and out?"
"We didn't even get an induction to tell us where the sign in book was."
Later, the coroner returned to the missing boards: "Did you say to anybody about the problems with the scaffolding?"
"No, everyone there knew."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because it's pretty obvious there were five-foot holes in the scaffold."
Luke Muller, a gas engineer, said that the day before the accident he had seen Mr Tolley working on the scaffold - supporting himself by bridging one of these five-foot gaps with a bundle of timber batons.
He explained how he had pointed out to the roofer that this was unsafe but was scorned by the deceased and told to mind his own business.
The inquest continues.
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