A roofing boss has been found guilty of manslaughter due to gross negligence after an employee fell 20ft to his death through a skylight.

A jury found both Colin Cooper, 48, and his company IC Roofing Ltd guilty of the charge after hearing how Darren Hoofe died while carrying out roofing repairs at a unit at the Bellbrook Industrial Estate in Uckfield.

The trial at Hove Crown Court heard that Darren Hoofe, 20, was not wearing a harness and there was no safety net in place to catch him when he plunged on to the concrete floor below on November 29 2005.

He died in hospital the day after the fall. A post mortem examination found he died of severe head and brain injuries.

During the 13-day trial jurors heard how Cooper, the owner and director of IC Roofing Ltd, an industrial roofing and sheet metal contractors based in Hailsham, failed to carry out the necessary risk assessment procedures in preparation for the work.

A risk assessment form which he was required to fill in by law was never shown to the men before they started work on the site.

When they began work on the 1,200 square foot unit, which had a roof made up of fragile asbestos sheets, Mr Hoofe and the two other men working with him did not have the correct safety equipment with them, such as guard rails and safety nets.

Cooper, who was not working at the site himself, had also left the three men with just two harnesses between them and only two crawling boards to enable them to manoeuvre themselves upon the roof, when they should have had five.

The court heard that Mr Hoofe, a trained electrical engineer who lived with his parents in Newhaven, was “inexperienced” and had only received limited training during the six months he had been employed by IC Roofing Ltd.

He was wearing his own trainers instead of the proper safety boots as he walked on top of the building, and had removed the high-visibility jacket he was meant to be wearing as he attempted to replace one of the roof's skylight windows.

The court heard that the hard hat he was wearing was not enough to protect his head from falling from such a height as he plunged through the gap where the skylight had been.

Emergency services arrived at the scene at 11.52am and took him to the Kent and Sussex Hospital before he was transferred to a specialist head trauma unit at King's College Hospital in London, where he was declared dead at 2.40pm the next day.

An investigation was launched by Sussex Police and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) which led to both Cooper and his company being charged.

Cooper had already pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the safety of an employee under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

The court heard that the HSE had served Cooper with two prohibition notices in the past for failing to take the correct safety precautions.

But during his defence, he told jurors: “If I'd ignored the risks I'd have sent my guys up there with nothing.”

He also said he believed the accident might not have happened if the men working in the building below had not asked Mr Hoofe and his colleagues to focus on a different part of the roof as they were disrupting them where they were.

The court heard that Cooper, who founded IC Roofing Ltd in 1992, had remained its sole shareholder and director and had eight employees at the time of the accident.

He told jurors that he always ensured the safety of his men and said that even though he was not present at the site when Mr Hoofe fell, he was confident that the two other workers with him would have made sure he knew what he was doing and did not put himself in any danger.

However the six man, six woman jury found both him and IC Roofing Ltd guilty after eight hours of deliberation.

Cooper, of London Road, Hailsham, showed no emotion as the verdicts were announced.

He was granted bail to return to Hove Crown Court for sentencing on January 27.