Fines and prosecutions Scrap tyre yard owner prosecuted for fire breaches


TYRE CHANNEL Ltd (TC Ltd) and director Anup Patel have been respectively fined and handed a suspended prison sentence for three breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 [FSO]. London News Online reported on the case at Southwark Crown Court, which saw the company and Mr Patel prosecuted after London Fire Brigade (LFB) fire safety officers visited the tyre scrap yard premises. This came after police ‘raised concerns’ over ‘poor’ fire safety conditions, and inspecting officers found a ‘makeshift corridor’ constructed at the rear of the single storey industrial unit that had several rooms leading off, including a kitchen and bedrooms. The bedrooms at the site in


Croydon were being used as living accommodation for workers on site and the premises were ‘heavily loaded’ with flammable items including tyres ‘stacked in excess of 4m high. As a result of this element of the inspection, LFB handed the premises a prohibition order preventing it from ‘being used for sleeping or residential use’. An emergency fire exit ‘was


nailed shut and inaccessible due to piled up tyres’, and there was also no smoke detection found in the building, while the aforementioned corridor was built from plywood ‘and would have offered little protection


LMA SERVICES Ltd was prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) under the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations 2002 (DSEAR) in connection with a fire in Leeds in June 2016. Yorkshire Post reported on the case at Leeds Magistrates Court over health and safety and fire breaches at the warehouse on Pocklington industrial estate. It caught fire after a worker ‘dropped a can of the highly flammable liquid heptane while he was filling it from a larger container’. He left and raised the alarm, but the fire quickly spread, eventually destroying the warehouse. The fire also damaged an adjacent warehouse and a storage


NEWS


against fire spreading through the premises’. The residential area also ‘had evidence of both cooking and smoking’, with ‘scorched and overloaded’ cables highlighting the ‘poor maintenance’ of electrics. Finally, TC Ltd had no fire risk assessment for the site and there was ‘no evidence that anyone working there had been trained in emergency procedures’. At court, the company and Mr Patel pleaded guilty to three separate charges related to breaches of the FSO, including having no fire risk assessment, a lack of general precautions and failure to install a fire alarm. TC Ltd was fined £60,000 plus £10,000 costs, and Mr Patel was given an eight month prison sentence suspended for two years.


Sentencing both, Judge Hehir described the premises as a ‘tinder box in the making’, while LFB assistant commissioner for fire safety Dan Daly commented: ‘Judge Hehir was right when he described TC Ltd as a “tinder box in the making” – it was just sheer luck there hadn’t been a fire there. As the director of the company, Mr Patel has had complete disregard for the safety of his staff, both while at work and in the living arrangements many of them were paying him for. ‘There is no excuse for leaving


people’s safety to chance, especially when information is so readily available to those with responsibility for safety in buildings to understand what their duties are and ensure they comply with the law.’


Chemical firm fined after warehouse fire area between the two units. An HSE


investigation found that the process of placing a bulk container of the chemical at around 1.5m saw a table postioned underneath the bulk container, on which a small electrical weighing scale was placed. Metal cans were put on the scale, and an employee manually filled the cans by weight by ‘operating a tap on the bulk container’. A flammable vapour created


‘came into contact with’ an ignition source, and the ‘most likely source’ for this was a spark from the electrical weighing scales. The company pleaded guilty to breaching DSEAR, and was fined £14,000 and ordered to pay £2,377 in costs.


HSE inspector Dave Stewart


said: ‘The risks associated with the decanting operation were not fully understood by the company. There were potential ignition sources present within the area where a flammable vapour was likely to occur. This case highlights the importance of assessing risks associated with flammable atmospheres. ‘Employers should ensure that


adequate measures are taken to reduce the formation of flammable atmospheres so far as is reasonably practicable, and to ensure that only suitable electrical equipment is used in areas where a flammable atmosphere may be present.’


www.frmjournal.com APRIL 2020 19


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60