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Stiff Penhallow fine sends message to hotel industry
Posted by Intime at 08:34, October 12th 2011.
A substantial penalty of £142,000 was imposed on the owners of a hotel in Newquay, Cornwall, for breaches of the Fire Safety Order after three guests died in a fire in 2007
Welcoming the penalty imposed on O & C Holdsworth plc, the fire service and council in Cornwall said it should send a clear message to the hotel owners of the need to meet fire safety law and ensure that fire safety management is a high priority.
The company was prosecuted after fire safety failings came to light in the wake of a tragic blaze at the hotel in August 2007. Three guests – Joan Harper, 80, Monica Hughes, 86, and her son Peter, 43 – died in the incident, while more than 90 people were evacuated.
At a court hearing in March, O & C Holdsworth plc pleaded guilty to two offences under the Fire Safety Order: failing to carry out a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment; and failing to ensure the hotel was properly equipped with a suitable alarm and detection system. The company pleaded not guilty to a third charge of failing to ensure the safety of relevant persons.
A director and an administration manager for the company were found not guilty of the same three charges. Their not guilty pleas were accepted by the prosecution on the basis that the company accepted responsibility for a failure of its systems.
Imposing a fine of £80,000 fine and costs of £62,000, Judge Christopher Darlow said the company was not responsible for the fire, which an inquest in 2009 had heard was probably the result of arson. But he said there had been a systemic failure by the firm to ensure its chain of hotels in southern England had complied with safety regulations. He added that the company had been warned about inadequate fire safety systems by the fire service more than a year before the blaze, but had failed to address matters.
Commenting on the fine, O & C Holdsworth said it had been devastated by the tragedy and had taken immediate steps to review and strengthen working practices at its other hotels