A WELSH coroner, sympathising with the family of a man who climbed a flagpole while drunk, said yesterday it was the sort of thing he would have done himself.

Coroner Philip Walters admitted that scaling a flagpole after a few beers was something he and thousands of other young men would have done in their twenties.

He made the comments at an inquest yesterday into 22-year-old Julian Brooks' death, a week before Christmas last year.

Mr Brooks had climbed a 22ft flagpole at the entrance to a new-build housing estate in Church Village, near Ponty- pridd, moments before he fell to his death.

Mr Walters said, "One has to accept that . . . it is the sort of thing many of us would have done at that age."

The inquest heard that Mr Brooks, a carpenter, had been out drinking with friends during the evening of the tragic accident.  He and two friends began walking along the A473 road to go a house party when they stopped to talk to two others, including Dominic Lord, outside the entrance to the St David's Manor housing estate on the site of the former East Glamorgan Hospital.

In a statement, Mr Lord told how the group were chatting when Mr Brooks started walking towards a flagpole advertising the housing estate nearby.  He said, "I saw Julian walking up the grass bank towards the flagpole. It became a run and he began to scale the flagpole.

"He got to the top and we were all laughing when he got to the top.

"Moments later the flagpole began bending."

After reaching the top, Mr Brooks fell to the ground, landing on his back.

He was taken to the Royal Glamorgan Hospital where he later died.