The colleague of a warehouse worker who died after being hit by a fork-lift truck says "near misses" were not unusual at the storage depot where they worked.

Speaking at an inquest into the death of Alan Wratten, witness Amy Lee said she had been chatting to her colleague just before he was hit by a fork-lift truck driven by co-worker Carlos Holman.

Mr Wratten, 59, of Sutton Road, Maidstone, died on Thursday December 7 2006, having suffered a head injury at Shed 13 at Lenham Storage Company in Ham Lane, Lenham.

Earlier that morning she had seen a near miss involving the same driver, who had stopped sharply to avoid hitting another colleague. She herself had avoided being hit on two occasions in two months at Shed 13, which she said was the busiest warehouse on the site.

"It was so unsafe," she told coroner Roger Sykes and a jury at County Hall, Maidstone, on Monday March 22, recalling how warehouse workers and fork-lift trucks operated in the same areas.

She said the fork-lift truck had been reversing "fast" without its reversing "beeper" sounding, before it hit Mr Wratten. However she said it was normal for drivers to drive "fast" without warning sirens on and agreed with the coroner's suggestion that "you had to keep your wits about you".

Following the collision she had seen one of Mr Wratten's boots on top of part of the fork-lift truck, but did not know how it got there.

Miss Lee, who still works at Lenham Storage, said floors had been painted with safety markings and barriers erected after the accident, but she had not been told what the barriers meant.

The inquest continues.