district court of ravnkær — case no. 2026-r-0041 the state v. jens møller

transcript of cross-examination — peter nørgaard examined by defense counsel

defense counsel mikkelsen: mr. nørgaard, you’ve been inspecting agricultural installations for eleven years. is that right?

nørgaard: that’s correct.

defense counsel mikkelsen: in those eleven years, how many fall incidents at grain silos have you inspected or reviewed?

nørgaard: inspected personally — seven. reviewed in report form as part of working environment authority case files — i’d say another fifteen to twenty.

defense counsel mikkelsen: so roughly two dozen silo-related falls you’ve had direct or indirect involvement with.

nørgaard: approximately, yes.

defense counsel mikkelsen: and in those cases — the ones where the cause was ultimately determined — how many involved alcohol?

nørgaard: i’d have to check the specific files, but… a significant number. alcohol is a recurring factor in agricultural fall incidents.

defense counsel mikkelsen: a recurring factor. would you say it’s the single most common contributing factor?

nørgaard: alongside inadequate safety equipment, yes. those two together account for the majority.

defense counsel mikkelsen: let’s talk about this particular platform. you said it’s 80 centimeters wide.

nørgaard: yes.

defense counsel mikkelsen: i want to make sure the court understands what that means in practical terms. 80 centimeters — that’s narrower than a standard interior door.

nørgaard: a standard door is typically 82.5 centimeters, so yes, slightly narrower.

defense counsel mikkelsen: and you’re walking on this surface twelve meters in the air, at night, in january. what are the lighting conditions on this platform?

nørgaard: there is a single fixture mounted on the silo wall near the top of the ladder. a caged bulb. i noted in my inspection that it was functional but provided limited illumination — it would light the immediate ladder area and perhaps two meters of the walkway. beyond that, you’re relying on ambient light.

defense counsel mikkelsen: and on a january evening at 21:45, what ambient light is there?

nørgaard: effectively none. it’s fully dark by 17:00 that time of year.

defense counsel mikkelsen: so a person walking past the first two meters of the platform is walking in darkness on an 80-centimeter walkway twelve meters above a concrete floor.

nørgaard: that’s a fair description of the conditions, yes.

defense counsel mikkelsen: now. the ladder. you told the prosecution it’s completely vertical.

nørgaard: correct.

defense counsel mikkelsen: with a safety cage starting at three meters up.

nørgaard: yes.

defense counsel mikkelsen: mr. nørgaard, in your professional opinion — as a man who has spent eleven years assessing exactly these kinds of installations — could a person with a blood alcohol content of 0.14 safely climb a vertical twelve-meter ladder at night?

prosecutor holm: objection. calls for speculation outside the witness’s expertise. mr. nørgaard is a safety inspector, not a physician.

judge: i’ll allow it within the scope of his professional experience assessing fall risk. you may answer, mr. nørgaard.

nørgaard: i — well. 0.14 is… that’s a significant level of impairment.

defense counsel mikkelsen: i’m not asking you to diagnose impairment. i’m asking you, as someone who evaluates whether installations are safe for use — would this platform be safe for a person in that condition?

nørgaard: no. it would not.

defense counsel mikkelsen: can you elaborate?

nørgaard: at that blood alcohol level, a person would have substantially reduced balance, coordination, and reaction time. the ladder requires both hand and foot coordination over a vertical distance. the platform is narrow. it was dark beyond the immediate ladder area. and one side was completely open — no railing at all. from a safety assessment standpoint, that combination of factors represents an extreme fall risk.

defense counsel mikkelsen: extreme fall risk. your words.

nørgaard: yes.

defense counsel mikkelsen: so even without anyone else being present on that platform — even if erik bredahl climbed up there entirely alone — you would characterize the situation as an extreme fall risk.

nørgaard: yes. i would.

defense counsel mikkelsen: let’s talk about the broken railing. you confirmed it had been deteriorating over time. gradual structural failure.

nørgaard: correct.

defense counsel mikkelsen: and jens møller reported it to the municipality four months before the incident.

nørgaard: he did.

defense counsel mikkelsen: in your experience, when a property owner intends to use a hazard to harm someone — do they typically report that hazard to the authorities first?

prosecutor holm: objection. counsel is asking the witness to speculate about criminal intent.

judge: sustained. rephrase, counsel.

defense counsel mikkelsen: i’ll move on. mr. nørgaard, the prosecution asked you about the fresh scratch at the break point. you said it could result from someone testing the railing or from the railing shifting in wind. is that right?

nørgaard: yes. those were two possibilities i identified.

defense counsel mikkelsen: is there a third? could the scratch have been caused by erik bredahl himself — reaching for the railing in the dark, not realizing it was broken, his hand or his boot scraping across the exposed metal as he lost his balance?

nørgaard: i… yes. that’s consistent with the physical evidence. if someone reached for a railing that was no longer secured and their hand or body made contact with the exposed break point as the railing shifted, that could produce exactly that kind of mark.

defense counsel mikkelsen: a man in the dark. drunk. reaching for something to hold onto. finding nothing.

nørgaard: i can only speak to the physical evidence.

defense counsel mikkelsen: of course. the boot print. size 44. the prosecution made quite a point of it. but you also noted that the grain dust holds impressions well and that there were very few prints. only two visible impressions on the entire platform.

nørgaard: that’s correct.

defense counsel mikkelsen: if two men had been on that platform together — struggling, as the prosecution’s theory would require — would you expect to see only two impressions in dust that, in your words, holds impressions well?

nørgaard: i would expect to see more disturbance. a physical altercation on an 80-centimeter platform — you’d anticipate scuffing, multiple overlapping prints, drag marks potentially. the dust pattern was… relatively undisturbed, given what’s been alleged.

defense counsel mikkelsen: relatively undisturbed. consistent with one person walking to the edge?

nørgaard: consistent with very limited movement on the platform. whether that’s one person or — i can’t say definitively how many people. but the disturbance was minimal.

defense counsel mikkelsen: mr. nørgaard, i have one final question. you’ve inspected this silo. you’ve seen the ladder, the platform, the broken railing, the conditions. in your professional opinion — as someone whose entire career is assessing fall risk — is the simplest explanation for what happened that night an accident?

prosecutor holm: objection. asks the witness to render an ultimate conclusion on the matter before the court.

judge: the witness may answer as to the safety assessment. he is not being asked to determine guilt or innocence. overruled.

nørgaard: i’m a safety inspector. i assess environments for risk. and what i can tell the court is that this environment — this platform, this railing condition, this lighting, combined with a blood alcohol level of 0.14 — represents exactly the kind of scenario that produces fatal falls. i’ve seen it before. the conditions were there.

defense counsel mikkelsen: the conditions were there.

nørgaard: yes.

defense counsel mikkelsen: thank you, mr. nørgaard. nothing further.

[witness excused]