Family’s ‘hell’ at loss of beloved Stephen

After the inquest, Mr Summerside’s family issued a statement which said: “Our beloved Stephen died from a tragic accident that we feel could of been prevented.

“All we can hope for now is that no other family has to go through this hell we are going through.”

Inspector Billy McWhirter, from Devon and Cornwall Police, said the CCTV images firstly showed Mr Summerside inside the lift carrying out checks. He is then seen outside the lift on deck 10 and reaches up to use a key to be able to open the doors.

He then sends the car down to deck nine and is then believed to have stepped on top.

As the CCTV only takes images every three seconds, it was not known if he tried to switch the lift to safety mode from the landing before stepping onto it.

He was working for Lift Tech, owned by Michael Moore, who was also working at the docks as part of a three-man team, including Mr Summerside and a colleague named only as Mr Oaten.

Mr Oaten had started work later that day and went to find Mr Summerside, but discovered him at about 10.30am, after he went to the motor room and found the lift stuck.

He said: “I looked in and saw a high-vis (jacket) on top of it. I couldn’t fully see Stephen because of his location, but because he wasn’t moving on his own I thought that he was injured.

“I don’t think he got the chance to get out.

“He went to push the, button to stop the lift and I assume he’s slipped on top of the lift and he wasn’t able to put the lift into inspection mode.”

He told the inquest normal practice would have been to manually open the doors of the lift, press the stop button, close the door and check the lift was not moving, open the doors again and put lift into safe mode.