A two-year-old girl fell to her death from the fourth floor of an apartment block after a maintenance worker failed to replace a glass panel he had removed from a barrier, a jury has been told.
Jurors were told details about the death of Ryaheen Banimuslem at the North Bank apartments, in Sheffield city centre, as the trial opened of maintenance worker Robert Warner, 45.
Bryan Cox QC, prosecuting, said Ryaheen had been playing in an outdoor garden area on the fourth floor of the block with her mother and others when she strayed along a walkway.
At the end of the walkway, Mr Cox told Sheffield Crown Court, there was a gap in the barrier because a glass panel had been removed by Warner.
''She made her way along the walkway to the point where the panel had been removed,'' the prosecutor told the jury of seven men and five women.
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27 Jan 2014''She passed through the gap in the barrier and fell to her death.
''There was nothing to prevent her from walking or running off the end of the walkway, as she plainly did.
''This accident was caused by the defendant's negligent conduct.
''In essence, the prosecution contend that he removed the barrier from the walkway and failed to replace it.
''He did nothing to prevent access to the walkway thereby creating a very dangerous situation.
''He did nothing to warn of the obvious dangers.''
Mr Cox said Warner had removed the panel some days before the tragedy.
He said he did this to replace another panel which had been smashed in in a more prominent position on the barrier.
Mr Cox told the jury how Warner "stood to gain financially" from replacing one panel with another.
The prosecutor said this was because the defendant submitted an invoice to ARIM (Allsop Residential Investment Management) - the firm which managed the building - claiming he had bought a glass panel.
Mr Cox told the jury how Ryaheen was born in Iraq but moved to the UK in 2011 as her father was studying for a PhD in material physics at Sheffield University.
She died almost instantly from her injuries when she fell on June 27, 2012, the jury was told.
Warner, of Shirehall Crescent, Shiregreen, Sheffield, denies a single charge of manslaughter by gross negligence.
The trial, which is expected to last about three weeks, continues.
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