AN engineer was crushed to death by a lift at a newly-opened Ikea store after desperately trying to claw his way out, an inquest heard.

Joaquin Fernandez's body was found by a forklift truck driver who saw the top half of a man trying to get out of the lift shaft.

The Spanish 41-year-old had been working on the lift at the Reading store when it began to move upwards.

Mr Fernandez jumped down into the service pit, but the lift started to travel downwards towards him.

He was seen on CCTV trying desperately to climb out of the shaft but the lift fell on him.

Berkshire coroner Peter Bedford heard how Mr Fernandez was "effectively crushed to death" after a safety key on the roof of the lift compartment had not been turned, allowing the lift to drop.

The inquest in Reading, Berks., heard he and a colleague were flown to the UK to carry out repairs on the lift when a failure in the safety systems caused it to drop suddenly in the early hours of October 18, 2016.

IKEA worker, Mateusz Buczel, told the jury: "I was driving the forklift around the ground floor of the store around 2.28am when I went past one of the lifts.

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"I saw out of the corner of my eye what appeared to be a man climbing out of the lift from underneath it, but then remembered that maintenance work was going on so didn't think much of it.

"Then I noticed that the man trying to climb out from under the lift was not moving. At that point, a Spanish man came running up behind me and clasped his hands to his face in horror. He then turned and ran to the control room."

Joaquin Fernandez's workmate that evening, Manuel Gomez De Sola, spoke to the jury through an interpreter, detailing how he had gone to the second floor to turn a key to prevent the lift from moving.

However he couldn't find the right tools at first and was delayed but in that time, he said, the lift's automated system causes it to return to the ground floor if not in use.

Mr Gomez De Sola added: "At the time, I was waiting for him to tell me he was going to enter the pit. All I heard were the doors closing, which was not strange, then I heard the cries of someone who sounded very very sick. At that point, I ran downstairs."

He added that if Mr Fernandez, of Salteras, Sevilla, Spain, had laid flat on the ground the lift would not have touched him but that his attempt to escape had led to his death.

Mr Fernandez was not aware of the lift lowering until the very last second as the lift, being hydraulic, meant that its process of moving was virtually silent.

Coroner Mr Bedford described how the lift "landed on top of the engineer's upper back, crushing downwards."

Paramedics, police and fire crews arrived at the scene to discover Mr Fernandez's torso protruding from the tiny gap between the lift and shaft, clutching at the ground as he was killed.

The inquest continues until Thursday.