A bank clerk fell five storeys to his death down an office stairwell seconds after being seen using his mobile phone, an inquest heard yesterday.
Investigators are trying to establish if Richard Pow, 26, slipped and fell over the railing while distracted by the handset.
Mr Pow, whose fiance Eleanor Sharman is pregnant with his child, had cycled to work at the HBOS building in Leeds on Monday last week and had just used the office changing rooms on the fifth floor. deal or no deal contestants
Deputy coroner Richard Manning said: ‘He was standing on the fifth floor stairwell landing, apparently either texting or using his mobile phone.
Then a member of staff heard a very loud bang.
‘Mr Pow’s body was found on the ground floor directly below where he had last been seen.
‘It appears that he has fallen from the fifth floor and struck various areas on the narrow stairwell on the way down.’
Mr Pow was in ‘a very bad condition’ after falling up to 80ft.
A post-mortem examination found that he died from multiple injuries.
Police are not treating the death as suspicious. The Health and Safety Executive is making inquiries.
Outside court one office worker said: ‘The railing comes up to about the waist on the average woman. It’s a big mystery and we don’t know how he came to fall.’
Mr Pow’s family yesterday paid tribute to the ‘popular, intelligent and caring’ young man who had no known problems in his life to indicate suicide.
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