An external fire risk assessor and a hotel manager have both been jailed for eight months for fire safety offences.
The manager had previously pleaded guilty to 15 offences under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, while the assessor of Mansfield Fire Protection Services pleaded guilty to two offences under the legislation.
Sentencing the two defendants last Friday (8 July) at Nottingham Crown Court, the judge said that the time had come to send out a message to those who conduct fire risk assessments, and to hoteliers who are prepared to put profit before safety.
Officers from Nottingham Fire and Rescue Service visited both hotels as part of a routine inspection. They found that fire precautions, which should have been provided to safeguard the occupants in the event of a fire, were inadequate.
Due to the serious risk to life, they issued prohibition notices preventing any further use of both premises for sleeping accommodation until suitable improvements had been made.
The risk assessor was prosecuted because he had prepared fire risk assessments for both premises. However the fire risk assessments failed to identify a number of significant deficiencies, said the prosecution, which would have placed the occupants at serious risk in the event of a fire.
The offences common to both hotels were:
- A lack of a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment
- A failure to ensure effective means of escape with doors leading onto corridors not being fire resisting or having self-closers fitted
- A failure to ensure that emergency routes and exits were provided with emergency lighting
- A failure to ensure the premises were equipped with appropriate firefighting equipment, detectors and alarms in that there was no fire detection within the bedrooms
- A failure to ensure that equipment and devices provided were subject to a suitable system of maintenance in that the fire alarm system, emergency lighting system and firefighting equipment were not tested.
In addition, officers found both staircases from upper levels terminating in the same ground floor area with no alternative escape routes or separation, a locked fire exit door, and exit routes obstructed by combustible materials.
The other offence related to a missing fire door and a window not being fire resisting.
July 2011