THE mother of a man crushed between a fork-lift truck and a lorry said she was devastated after a court case against the city council for health and safety offences was postponed.

Plymouth City Council is being prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive over the death of 22-year-old Rory Littley at its Prince Rock depot on February 19 last year.

Plymouth Magistrates were due to hear the case for the first time yesterday afternoon, but the hearing was called off in the morning. It will now be heard at the end of next month.

Rory's mum Carole Mulholland, from Honicknowle, said that family members had steeled themselves to attend the court but she was told in a phone call from her solicitor at 10.30am that the hearing had been adjourned.

She said: “I am devastated. We were all geared up to go.

“I don't know why it was delayed. I will speak to my solicitor later.”

The council faces two charges of failing to ensure the safety at work of its employees, including Rory Littley and Simon Hendry, while they unloaded wheelie bins from a container lorry.

The council is also accused of failing to ensure that people not in their employment, including Rory, were not exposed to risk during the same operation.

The HSE also charge the authority with failing to properly train worker Richard Hill on a counter balance forklift truck.

The council is also accused of failing to make an adequate risk assessment of the unloading of the wheelie bins from the lorry.

A coroner's inquest returned a finding of death by misadventure after hearing that Rory, who lived in Prince Rock, had been lifted off the ground to untie fastenings on a batch of wheelie bins in the back of a lorry.

The forklift lurched forward, pinning him against the back of the lorry.

The hearing was told that refuse collector Simon Hendry was at the wheel of the fork-lift truck at the time.

Rory was employed by an agency as a general labourer and had been working at the depot for a month.

The case was adjourned until August 28.