SIX people appeared in court yesterday in connection with an outbreak of legionnaires disease during which a Gwent man died.

Three staff from an engineering firm are charged with the manslaughter of a Philip John Roberts, from Cross Keys, following an outbreak of the disease which is alleged to have centred on the Cop-thorne Hotel, Cardiff.

Three former employees of the hotel, are charged with neglecting health and safety regulations.

All charges relate to the installation and maintenance of humidification equipment at the hotel.

One of the alleged victims, Mr Roberts, 59, of Gladstone Street, Cross Keys, died from the disease in February 2000.

The Alcan factory worker in Rogerstone was ill for two weeks before dying at the Royal Gwent Hospital, Newport.

A South Wales woman, 52-year-old Linda Johnson, died in December 1999 after contracting the disease.

The company Link Units (Engineering), which is currently in administration, faces two counts of man-slaughter and one of neglecting health and safety regulations.

Kevin Roger Kempen, 47, the managing director of the Lancashire firm, Mark Andrew Perry, 38, the company site manager, and Fred-erick Edgar Jones, 54, an electrician contracted by Link Units, face the same charges.

All three entered no pleas at a Barry magistrates' court hearing yesterday. Kempen, from Curzon Road, Southport, Jones from Peet Avenue, Ormskirk, and Perry, from Hayward Grove, Standish, Wigan, are to appear at Cardiff crown court on January 20 for a preliminary hearing.

The Copthorne Hotel itself is charged with neglect of health and safety regulations as is the hotel's former manager, John Arthur Yarrall, 56.

Christopher Purslow, 60, a freelance health and safety consultant employed by the hotel, and Dean Pardoe, a property maintenance manager at the hotel, also face one count of neglecting health and safety regulations.

Yarrall, of Park Close, Oakley, Basingstoke, and Purslow, of South Road, Weston-super-Mare, entered no pleas at the court hearing.

The court heard Pardoe, of Stonechat Close, St Mellons, was unable to attend as he was in America until the summer.

Yarrall and Purslow are due to reappear at Barry magistrates' court on January 30 for committal proceedings.

The manslaughter and neglect charges relate to incidents in the Vale of Glam-organ between April 1999 and February 2000.

The bacteria that cause Legionnaires disease thrive in water supply systems and the condition is usually contracted through the inhalation of invisible water drop-lets in the air.