A bakery worker yesterday told how he found a delivery driver dead, trapped in the tail lift of his lorry.

Chemistry graduate Dr Graham Meldrum, 40, died while unloading the lorry at Allied Bakery in Glentanner Road, Glasgow, on July 12, 2005.

At a fatal accident inquiry at Glasgow Sheriff Court, Henry Dillon, 46, senior despatch officer, recalled discovering the body. Procurator-fiscal Issma Sultan asked Mr Dillon to describe what he saw.

He said: "I was at the tray wash at the rear of the building. I saw the driver standing at the side of the vehicle at the rear. He was standing upright with his hands by his side.

"I noticed that he was trapped between the tail lift."

Mr Dillon said he went to call for an ambulance and the court then heard from the first police officer on the scene.

Constable Joseph Connolly, 34, said he was sent to the bakery around 6.30pm.

He said: "I observed an ambulance and there were two ambulance technicians who directed me to a person upright and trapped in the tail lift of a vehicle.

"His head had been struck on the right side by the metal ramp of the tail lift, which had forced it on to another part of the lift and jammed it.

"They ambulance staff told me there was no signs of life and that, in their opinion, life had expired. There was a pool of blood around his feet and a broken watch." He said a police surgeon later confirmed the man had died.

Dr John Raeside, 51, a Strathclyde Police surgeon, told the court: "I saw a male trapped in a hydraulic ramp of an articulated lorry. There was a metal spike into the right side of his skull and a metal plate slicing into the inside of his skull."

The court also heard evidence from an Allied Bakeries delivery driver who had reported faults with the lorry after he had used it the day before Dr Meldrum's death.

John Kane, 47, said he reported a series of defects.

He said the lorry was pulling to the right when braking, there was no internal button for the tail lift to go up, the tail lift was sticking on the near side and the bracket and locking pin of the tail lift were missing.

He later agreed he had inspected the lorry with a health and safety officer two days after Dr Meldrum's death and the pin and bracket had been repaired.

He told the inquiry there was no formal training on tail-lift operation. Drivers just told each other how they worked.

After Dr Meldrum's death, he said, they were given training on lifts and the type on the lorry involved in the death had been taken out of service.

At a criminal trial in November, ABF Grain Products Ltd (Allied Bakery) was fined £17,500 and TNT Logistics UK fined £14,000 for breaches of health and safety laws over the death.

Dr Meldrum worked for Suzieline, an agency that supplied drivers to Allied Bakeries. Also represented at the inquiry were his family, Colin Hutton Group, Zurich Insurance and Ryder, who maintained bakery vehicles.

The inquiry, before Sheriff Sean Murphy, continues.