A warehouse worker has been killed after being crushed by a forklift truck at a supermarket warehouse.

Joseph Ward, 55, a single man who lived in Birtley, near Chester-le-Street, died of severe head injuries at the Co-op distribution site on the Drum Industrial Estate, situated just north of the town, at 2.30pm on Tuesday afternoon.

Colleagues called an ambulance to the warehouse, but Mr Ward was confirmed dead at the scene. A post-mortem was due to take place at the University Hospital of North Durham yesterday (wed 5) afternoon and an inquest is expected to open over the next few days.

Mr Ward, who had worked for the company for 29 years, worked in the warehouse and was qualified to drive the pallet truck involved in the accident. Officers from Durham police investigations unit and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have already visited the scene and are conducting an investigation.

Martin Henderson, a spokesman for the Co-operative group said: "The only thing that I can say at this stage is this is a very tragic accident which we are still coming to terms with ourselves. We obviously extend our sympathies to his family and will be making a full investigation into how the accident came to happen and that's really as much as we can say at the moment."

He added: "Our main priority at the moment is to get to the bottom of how this accident occurred. We have our health and safety people on site today and are assisting the Health and Safety Executive, which is normal in these circumstances, to establish what happened."