The son of a builder who was killed in a trench collapse has told how his employer had ignored a safety warning and ordered him to carry on working.

Ryan Clements was working with his father Peter digging a ditch on land owned by former UKIP candidate Keith Crawford when the accident happened in January 2015.

Businessman Crawford, aged 74, is on trial at Exeter Crown Court accused of the manslaughter of 48-year-old Mr Clements through gross negligence.

Ryan told the jury he overheard a conversation between Crawford and his father about 20 minutes before the incident in which a wall of mud buried his father alive.

He said Crawford turned down his father’s suggestion of a safer way of working and replied ’F*** that, it’s getting stupid money now, carry on with what you were doing’.

Ex-soldier Crawford, who runs a property letting company in Exeter, denies manslaughter and failing to ensure the safety of an employee.

He says Mr Clements was not an employee and was a self-employed builder who was organising the work and was responsible for his own safety.

The prosecution say Mr Clements and his son were both working for Crawford at his home at Pocombe Bridge, near Ide, Exeter, when Mr Clements suffered fatal injuries in the trench collapse on January 20, 2015.

They say Crawford was warned the one-metre wide, three-metre deep trench was unsafe before a large slab of wet earth fell onto Mr Clements, burying him alive.

The Crown’s case is that Crawford could have prevented the tragedy by hiring a trench box at a cost of just £480 but chose to carry on the work unsafely to save money.

Mr Clements and his son were both digging a ditch to try to drain away water which was bubbling beneath the liner of Crawford’s indoor swimming pool.

Ryan Clements, aged 25, said he had been working for Crawford since June 2014 and he and his father worked full-time on the properties around Exeter which he owned or managed.

He said: ‘I remember a conversation between my father and Crawford. They were both about 15 feet away from the excavation. It was about us not feeling it was safe the way we were doing it. Keith did not want to spend the money.

‘Dad said he wanted to use concrete rings. He said it was unsafe. Keith said “f*** that, it’s getting stupid money now, carry on with what you were doing”.

‘I’m not sure what Dad’s response was. We carried on doing the work because it was our job. If we had not carried on we would have lost our jobs. About 20 minutes later we went to work in the excavation.’

Ryan said after the trench collapsed he ran to the house to fetch Crawford and raise the alarm. He did not work for him again and Crawford paid his £300 a week wages to his mother at the end of the week.

Under cross examination from defence barrister Mr Richard Smith, QC, he denied making up his account of the lead up to the accident in order to bolster a civil case which he and his mother are pursuing against Crawford.

Crawford stood as the UKIP candidate in Exeter in the 2010 and 2015 general elections, losing to Labour’s Ben Bradshaw on both occasions and for the South West constituency in the European Parliament elections in 2014.