Sheffield toddler ‘fell to death after worker failed to replace balcony panel’

Jurors heard how Ryaheen Banismuslem died at the North Bank apartments in the city centre, as the trial opened of maintenance worker Robert Warner, 45.

Bryan Cox QC, prosecuting, said Ryaheen had been playing in an outdoor garden area on the fourth floor of the block with her brother, mother and others when she strayed along a walkway.

At the end of the walkway, Mr Cox told Sheffield Crown Court, there was a gap in the barrier because a glass panel had been removed by Warner.

“She made her may along the walkway to the point where the panel had been removed,” the prosecutor told the jury of seven women and five men.

“She passed through the gap in the barrier and fell to her death onto the ground immediately below.”

Mr Cox said: “The accident was caused by the defendant’s negligent conduct.

“He removed and failed to replace the panel from the walkway barrier.

“He did nothing to prevent access to the walkway.

“He created that dangerous state of affairs.

“He did nothing to warn of the obvious danger or to minimise the risk to others.”

Mr Cox said Warner had removed the panel some days before the tragedy.

He said he did this to replace another panel which had been smashed in in a more prominent position on the barrier.

Mr Cox told the jury how Warner “stood to gain financially” from replacing one panel with another.

The prosecutor said this was because the defendant submitted an invoice to ARIM (Allsop Residential Investment Management) - the firm which managed the building - claiming he had bought a new glass panel.

Mr Cox told the jury how Ryaheen was born in Iraq but moved to the UK in 2011 as her father was studying for a PhD in material physics at Sheffield University.

She died almost instantly from her injuries when she fell on June 27 2012, the jury was told.

Warner, of Shirehall Crescent, Shiregreen, Sheffield, denies a single charge of manslaughter by gross negligence.

Miss Fatle said she realised what had happened to her daughter when a group of Somali girls called her over when they saw Ryaheen had fallen to the ground.

“I was looking around but I couldn’t see,” she told the court.

“I didn’t expect her to have fallen down.

“I wondered why, where was she?

“There were girls - Somali maybe.

“They said she was here and they pointed.”

She explained to the jury how she lived with her family on the eighth floor of the block and they used the fourth-floor communal garden from time-to-time.

Miss Fatle agreed that she had spotted a different gap in the glass barrier about two weeks before the tragedy.

She described how she covered the gap with a wooden bench.

Miss Fatle told the jury how Ryaheen was born in Iraq but the family moved to the UK in 2011 as her father, Hikmat Banismuslem, was studying for a PhD in material physics at Sheffield University.

Earlier today, Bryan Cox QC, prosecuting, told the jury how Ryaheen strayed along a walkway away from the garden area.

Mr Cox said the gap was at the end of the walkway.

“She made her may along the walkway to the point where the panel had been removed,” the prosecutor told the jury of seven women and five men.

“She passed through the gap in the barrier and fell to her death onto the ground immediately below.”

Mr Cox said: “The accident was caused by the defendant’s negligent conduct.

“He removed and failed to replace the panel from the walkway barrier.

“He did nothing to prevent access to the walkway.

“He created that dangerous state of affairs.

“He did nothing to warn of the obvious danger or to minimise the risk to others.”

Mr Cox said Warner had removed the panel some days before the tragedy.

He said he did this to replace another panel which had been smashed in in the garden area.

Mr Cox told the jury how Warner “stood to gain financially” from replacing one panel with another.

The prosecutor said this was because the defendant submitted an invoice to ARIM (Allsop Residential Investment Management) - the firm which managed the building - claiming he had bought a new glass panel.

The trial is expected to last about three weeks.