'Fumes death boiler was clogged with soot'.

A GAS fitter believed he had done a "competent job" on a central heating boiler for a pensioner who later died of carbon monoxide poisoning, a court heard yesterday.

Self-employed Peter Tongue also told Cardiff Crown Court he spent around 40 minutes cleaning soot from a ducted warm air central heating boiler at the home of Margaret Eileen Powell, 72, in Pendre Close, Brecon, mid Wales.

In December 2006, the bodies of Mrs Powell and her 74-year-old friend, Thomas Gwyn Morgan, were found slumped on a sofa at her home.

Tongue, 60, of Llanspyddid, near Brecon, denies two counts of manslaughter and seven offences under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

Cardiff Crown Court had previously heard that Tongue had attended Mrs Powell's home on December 4, 2006, to carry out repairs on her ducted warm air central heating boiler.

Peter Davies, prosecuting, said part of the boiler was congested with soot.

"As a consequence, it was giving out carbon monoxide and giving it out in lethal quantities," Mr Davies said.

Earlier in the trial, Mr Davies said that Tongue's registration to carry out work on the type of boiler Mrs Powell owned had lapsed in 2003.

When asked how many of these type of boilers he had worked on in the past, Tongue replied "hundreds."

He added that if he did not feel confident enough to carry out the work, he would have told Mrs Powell "to find somebody else."