A company has been fined £80,000 after three people die in a Newquay hotel fire. The fine has been described as a “travesty”.
24dash.com reported that the fine was given to O&C Holdsworth for health and safety failures at a hotel where three people died in a fire. The fine has been described as a “travesty” by a relative of the victims.
John Hughes, the son of Monica Hughes and brother of Peter, who both died in the fire which destroyed the Penhallow Hotel in Newquay in August 2007, attacked the sum that O&C Holdsworth, its owner, was ordered to pay after the company admitted it failed to ensure there were adequate fire alarms and smoke detectors in the building or make an adequate risk assessment.
Mrs Hughes, 86, 43-year-old Peter and 80-year-old Joan Harper, were unable to escape the blaze on August 18, 2007. Mr Hughes, a teacher from Cheslyn Hay, Staffordshire, jumped from a third floor window after trying in vain to save his mother.
Ms Harper, of Stoke-on-Trent, was also trapped, while her twin sister, Marjorie Brys, was one of more than 90 people who escaped the four-storey hotel.
The blaze in the resort town was later described by firefighters as the worst hotel fire in Britain for 40 years.
Truro Crown Court heard that the hotel had been warned that its equipment did not meet new fire safety regulations introduced in the Regulatory Reform (Fire safety) Order 2005, which came into force in 2006, and told to replace it. But the firm said the warnings had not been passed on to senior figures by hotel management.
Prosecutor David Sapiecha told the court that the hotel, which specialised in breaks for coach parties of elderly people, had been inspected by Cornwall Fire and Rescue Service in July 2006 and several failings were found.
These included a lack of a grade “L2” alarm system, which features loud smoke and fire alarms in every room. Of the hotel’s 59 bedrooms, 33 lacked self-closing doors required to slow or prevent the spread of fire. Some windows around the fire escape were also found to contain non-fire resistant glass.
Source: 24dash.com
