Manager and assessor jailed for fire safety offences

An external fire risk assessor and a hotel manager have both been jailed for eight months for fire safety offences.

David Liu, who runs The Dial Hotel and Market Inn, both in Mansfield, was jailed for eight months and ordered to pay £15,000 costs after pleading guilty to 15 fire safety offences under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. 

John O’Rourke, who runs Mansfield Fire Protection Services, was also jailed for eight months and was ordered to pay £5,862.38 after he pleaded guilty to two breaches of the fire safety legislation.

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”. 

Fire protection officers from Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service had visited both premises and found that the fire precautions were inadequate. They issued prohibition notices preventing any further use of both premises as hotels until suitable improvements had been made.

Mr Liu was prosecuted because he was the responsible person for both premises, and failed to make sure they were safe for customers staying there. Mr O’Rourke was prosecuted because he carried out fire risk assessments at both hotels, but those assessments were found to be “wholly inadequate”.

Ian Taylor, Fire Protection Group Manager at Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service, said: “It is a legal requirement for places of work to have a fire risk assessment.

“If employers are unsure about their own ability to undertake a fire risk assessment within their premises they should seek advice from a competent person.

In ascertaining someone’s competence to provide fire safety advice I would encourage people to ask for references, be aware of what fire safety training and qualifications they have and check to see if they are registered or accredited with an appropriate third party body.”

See the article Lessons from Penhallow in the latest issue of Workplace Law magazine on the Penhallow Hotel fire investigation.