Polish builder killed in accident poses with Cesc Fabregas

Builder killed in horrific accident posted photograph of himself with Cesc Fabregas outside building where he later died

Polish builder killed in accident poses with Cesc Fabregas
Tomasz Procko poses for a photo with Chelsea player Cesc Fabregas Credit: Photo: Tomasz Procko/Facebook

Smiling broadly for the camera, a young builder stops work at the luxury Knightsbridge home he was helping to renovate to pose outside with one of his football heroes, the Chelsea player Cesc Fabregas.

Barely two months later Tomasz Procko was dead, killed in a tragic accident at the same site, along with his colleague Karol Szymanski, after the railings on a balcony gave way while they were moving a sofa into the building in Cadogan Square.

The two men, both from Poland, were named on Saturday by Scotland Yard, as police and officials from the Health and Safety Executive continued their investigation into the cause of the accident.

Mr Procko, 22, who lived in Greenford, west London and was originally from Markowce, a village in south eastern Poland, was pronounced dead at the scene.

Mr Szymanski, 29, who lived in Wembley, was taken to a central London hospital in a critical condition where he later died.

Both men, who are understood to have been working at the £25 million house for a number of months, where employed by a UK-based property and construction firm which employs only Polish workers and had been warned three times about safety standards in recent years.

Mr Procko posted the photograph of himself with Mr Fabregas in Cadogan Square on his Facebook page, last September, saying: "With my colleague Fabregas in our working clothes."

The square was once home to the former England football manager Sven Goran Eriksson and Chelsea FC’s manager Jose Mourinho.

The building being renovated by Mr Procko and Mr Szymanski is owned by Taher Helmy, a former legal adviser to the deposed president of Egypt, Hosni Mubarak and is one of the country’s foremost lawyers.

It is thought the pair were moving a sofa out of the first floor window using a rope and pulley system when the balcony’s iron railings gave way and fell 30 feet on to the men below.

Witnesses described seeing Mr Procko and Mr Szymanski lying in the street covered in blood, impaled by pieces of metal. An older man was seen shouting about one of the two builders: “He’s my son. He’s my son, he’s moving” as emergency workers fought unsuccessfully to save his life.

Mr Procko’s Facebook page shows him appearing to enjoy his time in London while at the same time missing his native Poland. In one picture he poses outside Westminster Abbey with a friend, while other photographs he took show expensive sports cars parked around the streets of Chelsea and Knightsbridge.