Ex hotel owners to appear in court for fire safety breaches
The jury at Wolverhampton Crown Court took 55 minutes to find the former owners of the Connaught Hotel West Midlands Ltd guilty of 11 charges of failing to take sufficient fire precautions.
Jurors heard how the venue was a “death trap” hotel that put lives at risk with a “catalogue of failures”.
The breaches were discovered by investigators after a fire tore through the hotel in October 2007. These included the fire alarm not working, no smoke alarms or detectors in rooms, fire exits blocked and one fire door without a handle.
Investigators discovered that fire blankets were missing and fire exit routes were blocked. One fire alarm had been covered with a plastic bag.
The 87-bedroom hotel is now owned by another company.
Mr Jackson, prosecuting said many of the guests in the hotel at the time only knew something was wrong “when they heard people screaming and banging on doors to get out”. He told the jury the failures “turned the hotel into a death trap”.
He added: “The fact no-one died or was seriously injured in the fire was good fortune. All of the people staying there were at risk from this catalogue of failures and fire safety breaches. The photographs taken by the fire service speak for themselves.”
Sentence will be passed at Wolverhampton Crown Court on March 13.
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 states that you: ‘must make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to which relevant persons are exposed’
This means that all companies as a first point in their Fire Safety must complete a Fire Risk Assessment. This must be carried out by a competent person, who is trained to perform risk assessments. Your Fire Training needs, your fire extinguisher needs and any other fire safety related issues you will need to address will be highlighted from the Fire Risk Assessment.
Man saves child from bedroom fire after hearing smoke alarm
A man has risked his life to save a young child from a fire in a flat in Hull.
The fire started in a spare bedroom of a bottom floor flat at The Lawns in Sutton near Hull at around 4am on Saturday.
He tried to get the mother of the child to escape down the stairs but she was too frightened and would not leave. The man grabbed the child and ran from the property.
Humberside Fire and Rescue Service’s head of safety, Daryl Oprey, said: “It was a magnificent act of bravery to not think about himself but to run up the stairs and try to get the mother and child. He didn’t for one moment consider his own safety, but that of others. It was very selfless. His actions are not something we advocate, but you have to praise those who do carry out such heroic acts.”
22 firefighters attended the blaze, which destroyed two homes in the complex. Five people needed to be evacuated from the flat.
Mr Oprey also praised fire crews for safely rescuing the child’s mother from the top floor window.
Mr Oprey said: “There were flames coming out both sides of the building. The mother wouldn’t come down with the neighbour but ran to the room furthest away from the fire. We arrived and immediately put up a ladder and smashed the window to get her out as the flames were already climbing the stairwell. We also led two people out from the other flats. The main fire was put out quite quickly, but we had to spend a few hours dampening down. It was a stressful situation for the fire crews as there were people in danger. It was emotionally charged, but the firefighters are well trained to deal with this. We are very relieved there were no serious injuries or worse. A fire like this would not be survivable if the smoke detectors hadn’t gone off. Without this, the actions of the neighbour and the quick response but the crews, it could have been a different story.”
Both mother and child were taken to a local hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.
An investigation will be carried out into the cause of the fire.
Lancashire house fire deaths : Smoke detectors not working
It has been reported that smoke detectors were not working in the Lancashire house where four children died earlier this month.
Reece Smith, 19, four-year-old twins Holly and Ella and Jordan, two, died after a fire broke out at their home in Freckleton, Lancashire last week.
The fire is thought to have started in one of the bedrooms and smoke spread quickly through the house.
Lancashire Police have confirmed that post-mortem examinations carried out by a Home Office pathologist has shown that each victim died as a result of the effects of smoke inhalation.
A spokesman for Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service said: “We can confirm there were smoke detectors in the property but they did not work. Forensic examination has established they were not working before the fire. A working smoke detector can give an early warning with quite a small amount of smoke. More notice could have been given in this situation and maybe the tragedy could have been averted.”
Investigations continue into the exact cause of the fire.
Landlord jailed for death trap housing
A millionaire landlord and his son have been jailed for three months each after renting out death trap flats to vulnerable families.
Around 12 families paid Mr Fazal £100 per week to rent accommodation in an inner-city area of Manchester.
One flat that was occupied by a couple with a young child, had a first-floor landing littered with discarded furniture, mattresses, beds and electrical appliances. Inspectors found that bare electrical wires were hanging from the ceiling and the electrical wiring had been by-passed, no fire alarms had been installed and statutory fire risk assessments had not been carried out.
While renting out such horrendous accommodation, Fazal was living a life of luxury in his £1.3million house in a private cul-de-sac in Cheshire.
Fazal admitted six fire and safety offences and his son, Shahbaz, pleaded guilty to housing condition charges and fire and safety offences.
Judge Roger Thomas told them: ‘It’s wholly evident from the photographs and the description that the people who lived in those flats that they were living in squalor effectively. Having taken those flats you must have done very little indeed to make the accommodation habitable for the poor people who lived there and from whom you took weekly cash payments. The bigger thing that one can’t help but remark on is while you were trading in that way, you for your own personal comfort were living at the very opposite end of the housing spectrum. You were being treated to a very substantial home yet while you were living in the lap of luxury the people you were responsible for were living in slum conditions. No fire broke out and nobody was injured, but the risk was very real and your culpability is considerable.’
Manchester councillor Paul Andrews said: ‘It is absolutely shocking that a landlord in 21st-century Manchester is content to let a family live in this kind of squalor, when he is living content in Hale Barns surrounded by rich footballers. Slum landlords should be a thing of the past and I hope this serves as a warning to others who think they can rent out revolting properties and get away with it.’
Elderly woman escapes home after ‘wheat bag’ fire
An 80-year-old woman was forced to flee her home after a hot wheat bag she was using to keep warm, burst into flames.
The lady called the fire service to her home in Cleethorpes at around 2.30am on 19th October after she was woken by her smoke alarm and saw smoke billowing from the wheat bag.
Watch manager Ken Mawer who attended the fire said: “The lady had gone to bed at 10.30pm so the bag had been smouldering for some time. At some point it had fallen to the floor and caught fire. Thankfully there was a working smoke alarm in the property which alerted her to the fire. There is no doubt that if the house had not been fitted with a smoke alarm the outcome could have been a very different one.”
Mr Mawer added: “I cannot stress enough the importance of reading the manufacturer’s instructions before using a wheat bag. I urge people to be extra careful, never wrap them up in other fabrics as this can cause them to overheat and catch fire.”
The bag is a type of pillow filled with wheat which is heated in the microwave and will remain warm for a few hours. In this incident, the wheat had overheated and started to smoulder inside the pillow.
The woman, who does not want to be named, said: “It was all right for a while and I fell asleep. The next thing I knew there was a lot of thick, dark smoke filling the room. It was enough to set my fire alarm off. I tried to keep calm but it wasn’t very pleasant. I am the sort of person that hates bothering anyone and I thought of my poor son who would have to come out. I didn’t have a choice but to ring the fire brigade. It has given me a wake up call. You just don’t expect that sort of thing to happen but the fireman told me it has happened before. I will definitely be sticking to my bed socks from now on. I am just grateful I had a working fire alarm. I don’t like to think what could have happened.”
The lady was treated at the scene for smoke inhalation but did not require hospital treatment.
In 2010 there were three deaths in the UK caused by overheated wheat bags. Surrey and Sussex Fire and Rescue Service filmed a warning video earlier this year, on the dangers of incorrect use of wheat bags.