Dad and apprentice son died after falling 14 storeys while at work

A dad and his apprentice son died after the climbing platform they were stood on suddenly collapsed while at work, an inquest has heard.

David Bottomley, 53, and his son Clayton, 17, were working on the Unity Building in Liverpool city centrewhen the climbing platform plummeted at around 3.30pm on May 19, 2021, the ECHO reports. David died at the scene, while Clayton died in hospital four days later.

In court today (September 16), eyewitnesses described the horrific moment the platform at the 21st floor of the building, which is at the corner of Chapel Street and Rumford Place, suddenly plummeted 14 storeys onto the roof of the seventh floor.

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Thomas Blanchfield, who was working in the tower on the business side of the building and witnessed the incident from a meeting room window, said: "I could see David trying to grab something. I could see Clayton moving, but I didn't know what he was doing. Then they both came away from the building and grabbed the railing, and both seemed to brace themselves."

He said the platform, which was attached to a mast, began to click "like a rollercoaster" as it gradually dropped. He said: "There was about four to six clicks before it went into free-fall. The noise was like a Catherine wheel or a zip-wire as the basket was in free-fall."

Both men were seriously injured in the fall and David was pronounced dead at the scene an hour later, with his cause of death being "massive blunt force chest injuries". Clayton was taken to the intensive care unit at Aintree Hospital, where he died on May 23. A post-mortem found the teenager had suffered "severe, irreversible and unsurvivable brain damage",