AN official who investigated the death of a resident who fell to her death from a window at a care home has told how he found a series of inadequate safety measures.

The senior environmental health officer was called in after the tragedy involving Norah Elliott, 90, at the Parkview residential care home in Seaton Carew, Hartlepool.

Patrick Crowe told a jury at Teesside Crown Court yesterday that even after the death in October 2012, he was not happy with the safety precautions at the home.

Matt Matharu - who owns the home, and others in the Hartlepool area - is facing a trial where he is accused of four breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

He denies failing to ensure residents were not exposed to risk, to maintain devices, to make appropriate health and safety arrangements and to report a death.

It is alleged that restraints on some windows were either missing or easily broken, and satisfactory work was not carried out after risk assessments had been.

Mr Crowe told the jury of ten men and two women he was "not happy" with the arrangements in the room where Mrs Elliott and her husband, Bob, 90, had been put.

"It was a similar arrangement to what there was before, in terms of a single screw in the frame and a single screw on the window opening, and a small chain.

"I was not happy with that arrangement because that was similar to what was there before," said the council official. "I was not satisfied that it was robust.

"It could be easily disengaged, so my opinion was that still wasn't suitable for preventing vulnerable service-users getting outside of the home."

Mr Crowe met Mr Matharu and his maintenance man the following day and the homes boss said additional measures fitted had "satisfied" him they were "harder to defeat".

"I went into the room and found as well as the chain, a stopper had been placed on the window sill, secured by three screws, which stopped the window opening fully inwards.

"I did not feel satisfied with the arrangement," he added. "Where it was located on the window sill, it was quite accessible to the service-user.

"If they had a readily-available implement such as a knife, they could unscrew or attempt to remove those screws from the window sill. They were unsuitable."

Mr Matharu, 50, of Elwick Road, Hartlepool, says in his defence statement that either Mr or Mrs Elliott must have taken off the original restraint.

Prosecutor James Kemp said neither the device nor a screwdriver were ever found in the room, or in the grounds of the home, or in Mrs Elliott's clothes.

The pensioner plunged to her death after getting onto a conservatory roof from the window of the couple's first-floor room just days after moving in there.

The trial continues.