Testimonial:
"You dealt with our fire risk assessment and updates in Clapham swiftly and professionally and even when you were out of town you still managed to deal with our requests."
B V Bers, Director, Gateway Letting
The Key to Safety? Safety is the Key.
WARNING!
You CAN complete your own Fire Risk Assessment (it will be a lot cheaper for you) BUT..... we HIGHLY recommend that you speak to someone with competent knowledge in this matter first.
Court Result: 8 Month sentence, £15,000 fine AND £5,862 court costs EACH:
A fire risk assessor and a hotel owner have both received
eight-month prison sentences and substantial fines for breaches of the
Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
The Order requires a 'responsible person' to undertake a Fire Risk Assessment (FRA).
The prosecutions followed visits by the Nottingham Fire and
Rescue Service to two pubs/hotels run by Mr L. Both were found to pose
a serious risk to the lives of the residents, visiting public and employees.
The fire risk assessments prepared by Mr O of MFPS found to contain severe deficiencies and were
described as 'wholly inadequate' by the judge.
Do I Need A Fire
Risk Assessment for my Company?
In October 2006 the fire safety regulations changed so all
business owners with premises must now conduct a fire risk assessment.
Fire Safety changes
The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (known as
RRO or FSO) replaced over 100 previous fire safety at work statutes. Fire certificates are no longer required; replaced by the
legal requirement for a “Fire Risk Assessment”.
Risk assessment to
prevent fires
The RRO affects all non-domestic premises in England and
Wales. It requires business-owners to conduct an assessment of the fire risk
for the premises.
What is a Fire
Risk Assessment?
A thorough examination of your business premises and
activities, and how they may pose a fire risk to your staff, your property and
your visitors. You must record and take steps to reduce this risk, as part of
your 'duty of care' to those on your premises, and those in the vicinity if
applicable.
What Is My
"Duty of Care'?
·
Businesses need to protect employees.
·
Shop owners have to protect customers;
·
Landlords must protect their tenants;
·
Hotel owners should protect their guests;
What must
Businesses ‘Assess’?
·
The risk posed
·
The likelihood of that risk happening
·
The existing fire precautions in place
·
Who (staff or visitor) is “especially at risk”,
such as the blind, elderly, disabled or the deaf
If the Inspector
calls?
You must prove you have done this and keep accurate fire
log book records. Fines for not having this document are significant and far outweigh
the cost of the exercise for any organisation.
Who can do a Fire
Risk Assessment?
Anyone with some formal training, knowledge and
experience in fire prevention. There are official (lengthy) guides to help for
various types of premises.
If you do not feel confident or your staff do not have
the training, knowledge or experience, then call in the experts such as Safety
is the Key.
We will undertake a detailed investigation of your site
and issue a comprehensive Fire Risk Assessment to help your organisation and
satisfy the Insurance Inspector, the Fire Inspector and the Health and Safety
Inspector.
Call Safety is the Key now on 020 8406 5039 or 0777 614
0913 for help or advice on your Fire Risk Assessment.
Landlord jailed over
near-fatal bedsit blaze
10 May 2010
A Suffolk landlord has been
jailed for two-and-a-half years after a tenant was practically baked alive in a
fire at one of his properties in Norwich.
Nineteen-year-old Layla
Skalli suffered 80-per-cent deep-tissue burns and was given a less than
one-per-cent chance of survival following the blaze, on 14 April 2009.
Virtually all the skin below her neck was destroyed by the intense 600-degree
radiant heat, and only pioneering skin-grafting techniques saved her life.
The landlord of the flat,
which was situated above a mobile phone shop in Magdalen Street, Norwich, was
Michael Billings, who owns hundreds of properties in and round East Anglia. Billings appeared
before the city’s Crown Court on 7 May to answer a catalogue of charges in
relation to the blaze.
The court head that the
fire broke out in the early hours of the morning and quickly became a raging
inferno, with tenants in three adjoining properties lucky to escape the blaze.
The teenager was unable to
escape because her sash window could only be opened by four inches and the
staircase was blocked by thick black smoke. Investigating HSE inspector John
Claxton told SHP that Miss Skalli would have been disoriented and rendered
unconscious by noxious fumes.
Fire-fighters had to use
their ladder as a battering ram to smash the window and climb inside, where
they found Miss Skalli lying unconscious on the floor with her hands covering
her face, the only part of her not burnt by the intense heat.
In all, Billings was
indicted on 14 counts, including:
• nine under art.32(1) of the Regulatory
Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 for failing to take suitable fire precautions
to ensure the safety of his tenants;
• four under s3(2) of the HSWA 1974, for
failing, in his capacity as a self-employed landlord of a tenanted property, to
ensure that persons not in his employment were not exposed to risks to their
health and safety; and
• one under reg.36 of the Gas Safety
(Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 to ensure relevant appliances and flues
were adequately checked and maintained for safety.
The court heard Billings
failed to provide even the most basic protection for his tenants, such as
fitting a working fire-alarm system, installing the correct number of fire
doors, or providing adequate means of escape. The gas appliances in the flats
above the shop had not been serviced or properly inspected.
The landlord pleaded guilty
and was sentenced by Judge Paul Downes to 30 months’ in prison. In an unusual
twist, Billings was originally ordered to pay £40,000 in costs (although the
actual costs of the muti-agency investigation ran to £102,000) but following
representations by the HSE, Judge Downes said he would review the sentence if
Billings paid Miss Skalli £20,000 as a show of remorse.
Billings had, in mitigation, expressed his remorse over what happened to
Miss Skalli so the judge suggested the £20,000 payment as a gesture of true
remorse. SHP understands that Billings’ defence team is currently considering
whether or not to make the payment, as the judge would not be drawn on how much
it would result in the sentence being cut.
After sentencing Layla’s
brother, Andrew Skalli, said: “The actions of Michael Billings have ruined my
sister's life. We want to remind every landlord that they have a legal and
moral obligation to the safety of their tenants, something Billings gave no
thought to – hence why he has been sentenced today.
“This case has never been
about interfering public bodies checking up on people for the sake of it: it’s
been about ensuring all properties where people live are safe.”
Following this case, the
HSE announced the launch of a new website containing all the information
landlords need to meet their legal duties on domestic gas. The micro-site was
developed with support from the National Landlords Association (NLA) and is
described as a one-stop-shop to help landlords understand what they should be
doing to keep tenants safe in any properties they let. It contains information
on repair and maintenance, annual gas safety checks and record-keeping, and
provides answers to frequently asked questions.
Visit the new website at:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/gas/landlords
