CO death and lenient judge

C_Mababejive

An absolutely tragic and avoidable situation and an even more mindless verdict. I can only assume that the learned judge was helping out a fellow "professional". No doubt if it had been an ordinary man in the street,they would have been jailed.

This amateur landlady is not on her own in flouting the law and failing to care for the safety and wellbeing of tenants for the sake of profit.

*Removed by MSE Forum Team*

Cardew

C_Mababejive wrote: »

An absolutely tragic and avoidable situation and an even more mindless verdict. /

I assume you are not questioning the verdict, but the sentence??

C_Mababejive

Cardew wrote: »

I assume you are not questioning the verdict, but the sentence??

Possibly a constructive manslaughter rap rather than simple breaches of GSIUR..? I wonder who reconnected the duff boiler? we may never know..or is he/she due in court next?

Cardew

C_Mababejive wrote: »

I wonder who reconnected the duff boiler? we may never know..or is he/she due in court next?

He won't be in court because he is dead!

Have you not read the health and safety executive press release? - the second link you posted.

Mr Newton was the tenant and the man who died,

Ms Davies was his partner.

n May 2008, an employee of National Grid Gas visited the house to replace the gas meter. The boiler was labelled as ‘Immediately Dangerous’ due to ‘fumes at open flue’ and was disconnected. He left a report with Ms Davies and subsequently a letter was sent to the property addressed to the landlord, but was not passed on to *removed by Forum Team*.

However, the boiler was not repaired and was not used throughout the following winter. The gas fire stopped working in the autumn of 2009 and the only heating in the home was a borrowed electric fire.

On 31 October 2009 Ms Davies was away from home overnight and returned to find the house warm as Mr Newton had reconnected the boiler. She suggested it should be checked but she did not think it ever was.

I don't think that the sentence was particularly lenient.

The landlord was not notified of the boiler condition. Ms Davies was notified.

The tenant himself reconnected the boiler, that was the evidence given by his partner.

Pincher

A confederacy of dunces.


The landlady is clueless about houses, and the tenant has no common sense. The next door neighbour had to go to hospital through no fault of his own.


I am constantly afraid of what other people might do to put me in merd. A neighbour went ballistic because an idiot neighbour removed a storm drain, during renovations, which could mean rain water has nowhere to go, and all our gardens can get flooded.


Some cheapskate running on worn tyres will run me over one day, I just know it.


Problem is, if I ended their lives as a form of public service, that judge will just lock me away for life. So I can only check both ways lots when I cross the road, and try to save up for a detached house, preferably on my own island.

Road_Hog

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Possibly a constructive manslaughter rap rather than simple breaches of GSIUR..? I wonder who reconnected the duff boiler? we may never know..or is he/she due in court next?

"Mr Newton was found slumped in a chair after reconnecting the gas boiler, which had been condemned 18 months earlier.

He failed to pass the engineer's report on to *removed by Forum Team."


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-24916596


Darwin's Law.

macman

The boiler had previously been condemned and disconnected 18m ago. The LL has a duty to provide some means of heating and hot water in the property, but that doesn't automatically mean bringing the boiler back into safe use-alternative methods could have been legally provided.
If the boiler has been disconnected, then is there still a requirement to provide an annual gas safety certificate (since the appliance is clearly not in service and can't be turned on 'by accident')?
For example, many properties probably have old gas fires that have been disconnected following CH installation, but not physically removed. Do they still require annual inspection in rental properties?

benjus

macman wrote: »

For example, many properties probably have old gas fires that have been disconnected following CH installation, but not physically removed. Do the still require annual inspection in rental properties?

In the property I am renting there are gas fires in the living room and bedroom, to which the gas supply pipe has been cut. The current gas safety certificate makes no mention of them, only the boiler and the cooker.

Cardew

There seems to be no dispute that the landlady was negligent/ignorant of her duties as a landlord, and has been found guilty.

In mitigation, she wasn't aware of the gas boiler situation and her tenant re-connected the boiler.

However a 16 month suspended sentence, £4000 fine, 200 hours community service, £17,500 prosecution costs + defence costs is not IMO an unduly lenient sentence.

There are scores of thousands of idiots who deliberately bypass their gas meter and put lives at risk, and are rarely prosecuted.

benjus

While it was ultimately the tenant reconnecting the boiler that killed him, the landlord has the responsibility to provide heating and hot water - how is a tenant supposed to live without those things?

The gas fire stopped working in the autumn of 2009 and the only heating in the home was a borrowed electric fire.

So either the landlord thought that the tenant was still using the central heating and/or gas fire, in which case she should have had gas safety inspections done, or she thought that the gas heating was not working at all, in which case she should have provided an alternative heating system.

Had she complied with these legal responsibilities this would not have happened. I don't agree that the fact the tenant reconnected the boiler absolves her of much responsibility.

Nada666

An electric fire is an alternative heating system.