AN inquest into the death at a Corus steel plant of a man who was hit on the head by an iron crowbar heard that gaps big enough to allow a metal pole to fall through were found at the scene of the tragedy.

Stewart Eddy, specialist inspector Health and Safety Executive (HSE), said the 1.2- metre bar could have landed on Kristian Norris from one of four 40mm openings above where he was working.

Mr Norris, 29, a bricklayer, was working as a contractor for Vesuvius UK.

The father-of-two, from Beacons Lane, Ingleby Barwick, was carrying out maintenance work in one of the huge furnace vessels at the former steel plant’s Lackenby site near Redcar, on April 12, 2008.

He was helping to reline one of the vessels with bricks and was expected to complete the work that night.

After laying the last course, Mr Norris, 29, and his colleague, Anthony Morrissey, loaded up the temporary lift with a pallet of leftover bricks and other equipment, including the crowbar, and sent it up to a higher platform to be unpacked.

Mr Morrissey told the ten jurors that he saw Mr Norris collapse out of the corner of his eye.

It is unclear whether Mr Norris had been wearing a hard hat at the time of the incident.

On the third day of the inquest, Mr Eddy told Teesside Coroner’s Court that, although he could not rule out the other three possibilities, he said it was most likely that the tool had slipped through a hole to the right-hand side of a temporary lift.

Under cross-examination, Mr Eddy agreed that his original report stating that all four gaps breached British health and safety standards was wrong – two did not.

Michael Sheffield, Teesside Coroner, said: “Even though the British Standards may not have been applicable, the gaps were still present.”

The metal bar, which was tapered at one end, penetrated Mr Norris’s skull causing brain injuries which he could not have survived.

The court heard on Tuesday that it took 45 minutes for an ambulance to arrive at the scene which took unconscious Mr Norris to The James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough.

Concerns had been raised just days before the tragedy about the need for repairs on the industrial site during a safety audit.

The jury is expected to deliver its verdict today.