A PROPERTY-management company has pleaded guilty to breaching health-and-safety laws. The admission follows the death of a man who fell down a lift shaft in a Bolton town-centre apartment block.

Plasterer Craig Jones died after plunging five floors down the lift shaft at Marsden House on August 30, 2014.

In April this year an inquest jury returned a verdict that 27-year-old Mr Jones’ death was accidental, but was critical of the management company and landlord for failing to maintain the lift properly.

Mr Jones, who lived at the Marsden Road apartment block, had been with a friend in the lift when it broke down between the fourth and fifth floors.

The pair raised the alarm, but when no-one came they prised open the doors. Mr Jones, who was nicknamed Pugsley, slid through the gap and fell down the shaft.

He was taken to the Salford Royal Hospital but died five hours later.

Following the death, the Health & Safety Executive prosecuted the building’s management company, Warwick Estates Property Management, for failures under Section 3 (1) of the Health & Safety At Work Act 1974.

At Bolton Crown Court, Peter Smith, defending, offered a guilty plea on behalf of Warwick Estates to the charge that the firm failed to ensure Mr Jones was not exposed to risk.

Members of Mr Jones’ family were in the public gallery to hear the plea and the company will be back before the Honorary Recorder of Bolton, Judge Timothy Clayson, for sentencing on October 11.

Penalties for breaching Section 3 of the Act can be unlimited fines and up to two years’ imprisonment.

A civil action against Warwick Estates is proceeding.

The inquest jury had previously been told how instructions for raising the alarm in the lift were inadequate and unclear and that there was an intermittent fault with the emergency call button system which led people trapped in the elevator to try to rescue themselves.