A probe was continuing today into how a Bradford man plunged to his death down a stairwell void at York racecourse.

University graduate Jack Yates, 21, tragically died on Saturday at the end of the race meeting he had been watching with a group of friends.

Mr Yates, of Queensbury, worked at Keelham Farm shop in Thornton.

His boss and farm shop co-owner Victoria Robertshaw yesterday said he had been a big part of the company’s success story helping the business grow.

He had joined as a shy 16-year-old doing a Saturday job then turned into a “fantastic, confident, young man” who she described as “a gift” of an employee with what would have been a bright and promising future ahead of him.

Mr Yates, who lived with his parents and older brother in Hillcrest Drive, fell to his death in the famous Knavesmire Stand at about 5.30pm on Saturday.

It is understood he fell down a gap between an internal stairwell at the stand, rather from a balcony or down a flight of stairs.

Police, who have described Mr Yates’s death as “a tragic accident”, are liaising with the Health and Safety Executive as the investigation into what happened continues.

Most of his co-workers at Keelham Farm Shop had heard about the tragedy hours after it had happened but still turned up for work the next day, said Miss Robertshaw, who runs the business with her brother James.

While working at the farm shop Mr Yates gained a degree in human resources and was delighted when the farm shop created the perfect job for him as a People Administrator in January this year.

His manager Susan Thomas said: “Jack was truly a delight to work with. He was a well-rounded, talented young man, well-brought up, polite, with a dry sense of humour and the knack of saying the right thing. He always did every job well and with a smile. He was keen to learn and was more than a perfect fit for the job.”

Mr Yates, who went to Queensbury School, had taken up running as a way of building up his fitness and had recently raised £250 for Manorlands Hospice in Oxenhope, one of the shop’s chosen charities.

Bradford Councillor Michael Walls (Con, Queensbury) said his sympathies were with Mr Yates’s family and friends.

“It’s an absolute tragedy that what should have been such a fun, perfect weekend with his mates has ended like this,” he said.

“My sympathies are with his family, but also with the friends who were with him that day at the races, they must be terribly traumatised by what has happened. A life being lost would have been the last thing any of them would have expected.”

Anyone with information about the incident should contact York Police on 101.