The trust which runs a Shropshire school where a 40-year-old father died while helping to demolish a classroom has expressed its sympathy to his family and said it “genuinely believed” the work was being undertaken safely.

Five builders were working in the classroom at Moor Park School in Richards Castle when it collapsed at about 11.30am on August 14, 2007.

Shrewsbury Crown Court heard yesterday four of them were lucky to survive after the roof landed on machinery at the site, protecting them from harm.

Mark Evans, of Ludlow, had been working at the other end of the classroom and was crushed by the rubble.

The school, which has 234 pupils and employs 111 staff is run by the Moor Park Charitable Trust, which admitted contravening health and safety regulations by not checking the competency and experience of the contractor and not ensuring regulations were being followed.

James Puzey, prosecuting for the Health and Safety Executive, said a construction worker was brought in following a recommendation from a member of the trust’s committee.

He said: “The school made no inquiry as to how he proposed to do this job, they did not inquire as to his competence to do the job. By these omissions the school failed in its legal duty.”

The court heard the worker brought in four men, including Mr Evans, to help demolish the classroom. They took away the partition wall, the plywood and timber cladding and some of the horizontal and vertical planks on the walls of the classroom.

It is believed the plan was to knock down the weakened building with machinery but that something caused it to become insecure and it collapsed before that could be done, the court heard.

Following the case a spokesman for the trust said it expressed its “deepest sympathy to all those aff- ected by this tragic incident in August 2007, most especially Mr Evans’s family”.

He added: “The trust at all times sought and seeks to provide a safe environment for those who visited its premises. The trust genuinely believed that the demolition being undertaken at its premises would be undertaken safely by the contractors appointed.”

By Rhea Parsons