Roofer heard a crack as friend fell to his death
Inquiry hears man plunged through roof
A roofer choked back tears as he this week told a fatal accident inquiry how he heard a “crack” and saw his workmate fall to his death through the roof of a cattle shed on a Stirlingshire farm.
Edward Varey, 41, was not wearing a safety harness when he plunged 24 feet through cement-and-asbestos sheeting.
His workmate, Gavin Clazie, told Stirling Sheriff Court he was tidying up on the roof of the shed, at Plean Farm, Gallamuir Road when the accident occurred.
Mr Clazie, 48, said Mr Varey “went to have a conversation” with the farm owner, then came back on the roof.
He told the court: “Basically his last words were really that the farmer asked him to go back up and put these last few spare sheets in for him. Two seconds later he was gone.
“I heard a crack and turned around – and Edward’s looking right at us as he fell straight down.”
Mr Varey, from Larkhall, Lanarkshire, was based in Berwick-upon-Tweed at the time of the tragedy.
The inquiry heard that the plan had been to return to the farm with a cherry-picker the next day to bolt the roofing sheets in place.
Mr Clazie said it had been planned to leave the farm after lunch to drive through to Larkhall to help Mr Varey’s parents move house.
In answer to questioning, he told the depute fiscal at the inquiry, Catriona Dow, that neither he or Mr Varey had been wearing safety harnesses.
He said: “We were wearing harnesses in the morning but in the afternoon we didn’t put them on because we were meant to be going home.”
Miss Dow said: “But at that point if you fell through the roof there’d be nothing to stop you?” Mr Clazie replied: “No.”
He added: “I can’t remember much after he went through the roof because I was in that much shock.” He said Mr Varey’s son, also called Edward, then 15, had been waiting in the van to go with them to Larkhall to help with the house move.
Mr Clazie said: “I think I shouted down to him that his dad had just fallen through the roof.”
Now 18, Edward Varey jnr, said he recalled his father “discussing business” with the farmer near the van before his father went back on the roof.
He said: “The farmer asked him, ‘are the sheets fastened down, because it’s forecast for rain?’.
“I think he said he was milking that night and he didn’t want the cattle to get wet.”
He said after Mr Clazie shouted he ran into the shed and found his father had fallen.
Weeping, he said: “I didn’t see what happened.
“An ambulance and the police arrived. Everything happened that fast.”
The court heard that Mr Varey had hoped to be paid £12,000 for the job of washing, repairing, and respraying the cattleshed roof, but the size of the job was cut and the amount reduced.
“Mr Varey had, however, hoped to get more work from the farmer in the future.
Farmer’s daughter Nicola Reid told the inquiry she ran to give Mr Varey CPR, and continued until an ambulance crew arrived and took over.
The father-of-four was pronounced dead at the scene at 2.25pm, less than half an hour after his fall, from head and chest injuries.
Miss Reid, in evidence, said she saw Mr Varey on the roof before the accident.
“I remember thinking he was a bit stupid to be walking about that roof with nothing.
“It’s a fragile roof. If you fall from that height, you are not going to survive,” she added.
Health and safety inspector Matthew Ramsay said Mr Varey, a self-employed roofing contractor, who had been contracted by the farmer, Alan Reid, had employed “no safety measures whatsoever”.
He said crawling boards should have been used, and he saw “no crawling boards, or scaffold boards, or any kind of board” in use.
He issued an immediate prohibition notice on further work “due to the high level of risk, and the fact that risk had been realised”.
The inquiry, which is mandatory because Mr Varey was acting in the course of his occupation at the time of the accident, on August 12, 2015.
Sheriff Wylllie Robertson, presiding, told Edward Varey jnr that the court gave him its condolences for his father’s death.
The inquiry was due to conclude yesterday (Tuesday). Sheriff Robertson will thereafter issue his findings in writing.
I heard a crack and turned round... Edward’s looking right at us as he fell straight down