DIY giant B&Q has been ordered to pay almost £50,000 after doors rained down on shoppers and emergency crews in a store.

A total of four people were injured when kitchen cupboard doors fell from the shelves onto them.

Today a judge handed B&Q a fine for breaching health and safety rules in the "freak accident" at its superstore at Lyons Farm in Worthing.

Carpenter Stuart Lednor was shopping with his partner Julie Forrest when the first pack fell from a 15ft high shelf.

He broke his right leg when the impact of the door on his neck and shoulders knocked him to the ground.

As he lay in the aisle another pack fell on him, breaking his left ankle.

When Miss Forrest ran to help him, another pack fell off the shelf and hit her on the head.

Another customer, Mark Greening, was also hit on the head as he tried to help the couple.

When an ambulance arrived ten minutes later, staff told paramedic David Wells it was safe to enter the aisle and treat Mr Lednor's injuries.

But as he was giving him an injection for pain relief a fifth pack fell from the shelf and hit him on the shoulder, injuring his spine.

Mr Wells was praised in court for "courageously" continuing to care for Mr Lednor, though he was injured himself.

Mr Lednor, now 48, has been unable to work since the June 5 2004 accident.

He was on crutches until Christmas 2005.

Miss Forrest was left psychologically damaged by the experience, Chichester Crown Court heard today.

Nicholas Haggan QC, defending B&Q, told the court the accident was caused when a forklift truck nudged the flat-packed doors while stocking the shop shelves the night before the accident.

From that point they were held in place only by shrink-wrapping, which stretched over the hours that followed and broke when the shop was open.

Mr Haggan said the store's supervisor, Toby Eagle, had not carried out the proper safety checks required by the company.

Mr Eagle was suspended shortly after the accident.

Mr Haggan said: "The company very much regrets firstly that the accident should have happened, and secondly that persons should have been injured."

He said 3.4 million palettes of stock are moved each year in B&Q's 334 stores but this was the only time this sort of accident had happened.

The company pleaded guilty to a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 by failing to ensure customers were not exposed to danger.

Judge William Wood QC said: "I accept this was a most unusual accident and it could be described as a freak accident."

He ordered B&Q to pay £33,641.14 costs and pay a £15,000 fine.

Speaking after the hearing Mr Lednor said the fine was not heavy enough to punish a company of B&Q's size.

He said: "They basically screwed up my life.

"Three inches one way or another and I would have been dead.

"They made the forklift driver and the manager scapegoats.

"I think they should be made an example of, to prove that you can't do this sort of thing and get away with it."

Mr Lednor and the other victims have received an undisclosed damages settlement from the store.