The jury has retired in an inquest into the death of a Brighton labourer who fell from the roof of a five-floor block of flats on Hove seafront.
They were told that Ernie Taylor had been working at Essex House, St Aubyns Gardens, in Kingsway, Hove, before he fell from down a lightwell from the roof into the basement.
He was taken to the Royal Sussex County Hospital with catastrophic injuries and died three days later – on his 30th birthday and a week before the birth of his second child.
Mr Taylor, of Lodsworth Close, off Swanborough Drive, Whitehawk, had been up on the roof taking photographs after a text message from his boss.
But Gavin Damario, 42, who runs Damario Asphalt Roofing Ltd, told Brighton and Hove Coroner’s Court that he had not asked Mr Taylor to go on the roof to take the pictures.
And the principal contractor, Stephen Ford, a sole trader, trading as Miles-Hersey, said that there was no need for any work to be carried out on the roof.
Mr Taylor’s family asked why tools were on the roof that appeared to indicate that he and the foreman on the job, Paul Damario, 65, had been cutting felt there.
Paul Damario said that everything had been within reach from the scaffold where they were working – and that the work had been done from the scaffold.
He said that some items may have been knocked out of place as he paced up and down during a 999 call.
Mr Taylor’s family said that photographs on his phone showed that everything was in the same place as when he took the pictures.
Sussex Police investigating officer Amber Evans, from the major crimes team, told the inquest that the police and the Health and Safety Executive had carried out a joint investigation.
Initially, they investigated Mr Taylor’s employer, Damario Asphalt Roofing, for corporate manslaughter. And they investigated Mr Ford for gross negligence manslaughter.
She told the inquest jury that the threshold to bring charges was high, the burden of proof was on the prosecution and the standard of proof was beyond reasonable doubt.
The inquest was told that, after the police had completed their investigation, a decision was taken to bring no criminal charges.
The jury were sent out late on Tuesday (17 January) and resumed their deliberations this morning (Thursday 19 January).
The coroner’s court is sitting at the Leonardo Hotel Brighton, in Stroudley Road, by Brighton railway station.
