By Court Reporter
AN inquest jury has returned a verdict of accidental death on a precision engineer who was crushed as he assembled racking at a Dunmow company.

The alarm was raised by staff at Boddingtons Electrical Ltd on Chelmsford Road Industrial Estate when they found Kevin Jolly’s untouched cup of tea, Chelmsford Coroners Court was told today (Tuesday, October 18).

The 54-year-old’s body was discovered at 5pm on November 18, 2009 tangled up among the collapsed racking in the pitch dark of a shipping container, which was being converted into a storage unit.

Self-employed Mr Jolly, of School Villas, The Street, High Roding, had partly erected the framework. Health and Safety Executive investigator David Rudland told the jury that the quarter of a tonne structure was “liable to collapse”.

He continued: “The design was such that it could fold with very little force applied, with the bolts holding it together acting like hinges or pivot points.”

It was, he said difficult to see how Mr Jolly’s mind was thinking.

The worker, whose partner Susan Smith attended the hearing at County Hall, died from traumatic asphyxia caused by what was described as the “substantial” 228kg weight of the metal work which collapsed on him.

The inquest heard that Mr Jolly, who had regularly worked as a self-employed contractor for Boddingtons after he was made redundant from a Stansted firm, had been given the design for the racking by Boddingtons’ boss Nick Jordan and retired consultant engineer Harald Fielder. It had been left to him to decide how to assemble it.

Sales administrator Lorraine Hone said she talked to Mr Jolly at lunchtime and he had been “nonchalant” when he told her there had been a moment when the racking had slid and “sort of dropped on him”.

The alarm was raised by production assistant Daniel Jankowski as the factory was about to close at 5pm. He said: “I saw Kevin’s tea was on the table, it was cold and not been touched at all. I noticed the container doors were open, I thought it was unusual because everybody was going home.”

He went to fetch a light to see inside the dark container in the yard and continued: “I thought I saw a hand. It made me sure something was not right.”

Emergency services were called and Mr Jolly was confirmed dead at the scene.

The jury returned a verdict of accidental death and after the hearing on Tuesday, Mr Jolly’s partner said she did not wish to comment on whether any legal action might be considered.