Witnesses describe dad and son's fatal fall from building

The pair had been working on the exterior cladding on the Unity building in Liverpool

Witnesses have told a court how they saw two construction workers falling 14 storeys to their deaths in a busy city centre as the platform they were standing on "dropped into freefall".

David Bottomley, 53, and his son Clayton, 17, were part of a team working on the exterior cladding on one of the two towers which make up the Unity building in Liverpool on 19 May 2021.

An inquest into their deaths at the city's Gerard Majella Courthouse heard onlookers told police of the moments before a brake failed on the platform.

Paramedic Jack Watson, who was in his flat in the building at the time, said he looked down and saw the older man apparently fatally injured.

Warning: This article contains upsetting details

Unity buildings consists of two connecting towers, a 27-storey residential block featuring 161 apartments and a 16-floor building made up of commercial space.

Addressing the inquest jury, coroner Johanna Thompson said the father and son were standing on "a platform surrounded by railings and netting" which "runs up and down the side of building on a track" known as a mast.

'In shock'

David and Clayton - the latter working for his father as an apprentice - fell from the 21st floor and landed on a roof on the seventh floor, the court heard.

Mr Watson, who went to help after being woken by the sound of the impact in his 13th floor flat, said the impact shook his bed and a sounded like "a plane crash or a car bomb".

David was showing "clear signs of a brain injury and wasn’t conscious" and had no pulse, he said.

David was declared dead at the scene while Clayton died four days later at Aintree University Hospital where he was admitted to intensive care, the court heard.

Shanee Tatton, who lived in a flat on the 21st floor, described in a statement read to the jury how the pair had appeared outside her window where David had been "making me laugh" before he and his son began drilling on the outside of the building.

She wrote she was taking part in an online meeting when she heard "a loud noise that sounded like something falling and crashing at speed, like a sound I’d never heard before".

She then looked out and saw the two men "lying on top of another roof", her statement said.

Thomas Blanchfield saw the incident happen from a solicitors office in the adjacent tower in the complex, from where he said he saw David "try to grab something" before the platform began to fall.

In a statement read in court, he wrote that he saw both David and Clayton then try to grab a railing but "seemed to brace themselves" before a series of "loud clicks" where the platform would drop "about a foot" before "dropping into freefall".

"It was a noise like a Catherine wheel or a zipwire," his statement read.

"I shouted ‘the baskets have dropped. I did not see it hit the floor but I heard the crash and could see it bounce back up a floor and a half."

Laura Hampton, in the same office building, said people who saw the pair fall "screamed" and staff were sent home because they were "frightened, in shock and upset".

The inquest, which is due to last seven days, continues.