Two More Imprisoned for Breaching Fire Safety Order
Two landlords from Haringey, London were sentenced to 6 months in prison and ordered to pay £5000 costs each following a successful prosecution by the London Fire Brigade.
The prosecutions followed a fire on 31 March 2007, in a house that had been converted into bedsits. After the fire, safety inspectors from the London Fire Brigade found a number of breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
These breaches included inadequate fire detection systems, lack of proper fire doors on bedrooms or to the communal kitchen, no emergency lighting in the stairway, no portable fire fighting equipment and no fire risk assessment available for inspection.
As a result of the breaches listed a further inspection was arranged and the owners were asked to be present. An enforcement notice was then issued explaining the breaches that needed to be dealt with, but after further visits over a number of months the inspecting officers found that no work to make the building safe had been completed.
Brian Cole AM FRSA, Chairman of the London Fire & Emergency Planning Authority said ‘This is our second prosecution resulting in a custodial sentence and again sends a strong message to landlords and building owners. Our role is to keep Londoners safe, and where we see that you are not taking your legal fire safety responsibilities seriously, we will take action’
