A FATHER-of-three from Radcliffe who was killed after being crushed by a steel container died accidentally, a coroner has ruled.

Michael Wickstead suffered fatal injuries to his head and torso when he was hit by a three-tonne piece of steel which was being lifted by an overhead crane.

Two overhead cranes had collided which knocked a large steel container into the air and crushed Mr Wickstead against another container.

Mr Wickstead, aged 63, was employed as a welder at the Greengate Industrial Estate, in Chadderton, where he had worked for about eight years.

A jury-led inquest at Oldham Magistrates Court was told that a colleague whom Mr Wickstead was working with had only been working at the firm for six weeks, and had received no formal training from the company.

He had pressed the wrong button, which sent one of the cranes in the wrong direction and led to the subsequent chain of events, on July 11, 2011.

The firm has previously pleaded guilty to breaching health and safety rules at Manchester Crown Court and was fined £125,000.

It was criticised for not creating a safe working environment for its staff, but the court was told that the firm had fully co-operated with the investigation by the Health and Safety Executive, and had gone "above and beyond" what was expected to improve safety.

The jury took less than an hour to deliver a verdict of accidental death at the inquest.

The court heard written submissions from Mr Wickstead's family read out by coroner Simon Nelson.

In her statement, Mr Wickstead's wife Judith said he was a regular at Little Lever Working Men's Club, where he enjoyed watching sport at the weekend.

She said: "I would describe Michael as being a character of habit, he had a routine and liked to stick to it. He got up for work at the same time and returned home at the same time.

"He was a bit of a TV addict, and liked to watch sport on TV."

Mr Wickstead, of Bolton Road, grew up in Shropshire and was the only boy in a household of six children.

He left school at 15 and embarked on an apprenticeship in engineering, eventually becoming a skilled welder.

He met his first wife aged in his early 20s, who he had three children with. However, Mr Wickstead divorced in the mid 1980s after his marriage broke down.

It was thanks to his sister, Maureen Webb, that he met his second wife Judith, as they met while he was on holiday with her husband.

Mr Wickstead would regularly travel to Radcliffe, where Judith lived, before the couple married in June 1989.

In a written statement to the court, Maureen Webb said she was "shocked" to hear about her brother's death, and that she had been "very close" to him, regularly phoning each other to chat about their lives.