A caretaker had shouted at a disabled man to get out of a skip only hours before a Cleckheaton man was fatally crushed, a Court heard.

Carl Tolson told Leeds Crown Court he had seen a one-armed employee of Easy Moss Products in Dewsbury standing in a cage hoisted up by a fork-lift truck on January 29, 1998.

Six hours later John Speight, 25, fell from a cage lifted by the same truck while emptying rubbish into a skip.

The cage then fell on top of him while he lay on the floor. He died in hospital five days later.

Mr Tolson said in a statement to police: "I considered that what happened was an accident waiting to happen but no-one seemed to take any notice of what I kept saying."

Mr Tolson had told police he warned the owner of Easy Moss Products, Roger Jackson, that the company's method of empying waste was dangerous. But in court yesterday Mr Tolson claimed his warnings were about the condition of the yard surface, which could cause the cages to fall.

Company owner Roger Jackson, 43, of Barker Street, Horbury, Wakefield, denies charges of Mr Speight's manslaughter and failing to ensure the safety of his employees.

Mr Speight, of Foldings Avenue, Scholes, had just completed a six-month work placement and had been employed to continue working at the firm by Remploy just a day before the accident.

He could not read or write and was not allowed to operate machinery.

Mr Tolson, who looked after units at the mills where Easy Moss Products had units in Mill Street West, said he had seen Mr Speight fall.

He told police: "I saw a lad falling from up above the skip.

"I went out, I could see he was badly injured, he was holding his ribs. His head was bleeding at the back and there was blood coming out of his ears."

Mr Tolson told officers that staff at the company, which employed several workers with special needs, emptied waste into skips by lifting men into the air at least once a day.

The court had earlier heard Mr Speight's father Gary Speight had called upon Kirklees Social Services to check the working conditions of his son.

Prosecutor Roger Keen QC had told the jury Mr Speight did what he was told and would not realise when he was in danger.

But Beverley Hendricks, employment adviser for Kirklees Council who had helped place Mr Speight in his job, said she was happy with standards at the firm.

She said: "I never had any doubts about safety, if we thought there was any danger we would have pulled him out."

The trial continues.

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