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David Liu, who runs the Dial Hotel and Market Inn, both in Mansfield, had previously pleaded guilty to 15 offences under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, while John O'Rourke of Mansfield Fire Protection Services pleaded guilty to two offences under the legislation.
Sentencing the two defendants on Friday 8 July at Nottingham Crown Court, 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.
Officers from Nottingham Fire and Rescue Service visited both hotels as part of a routine inspection. They found that both premises were being used to provide sleeping accomodation on the upper floors and that fire precautions, which should have been provided to safeguard the occupants in the event of a fire, were inadequate.
Due to the serious risk to life, they issued Prohibition Notices preventing any further use of both premises for sleeping accomodation until suitable improvements had been made.
Mr. O' Rourke was prosecuted because he had prepared fire risk assessments for both premises. However, the fire risk assessments failed to idenitfy a number of significant deficiencies, said the prosecution, which would have placed the occupants at serious risk in the event of fire.
The offences common to both hotels to which Mr. Liu, as the resopnsbile person, pleaded guilty, were:
- A lack of suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment
- A failure to ensure effective means of escape with doors leading onto corridors not being fire resisting or having self-closers fitted
- A failure to ensure that the emergency routes and exits were provided with emergency lighting
- A failure to ensure that the premises were equipped with appropriate fire fighting equipment, detectors and alarms and in that there was no fire detection in the bedrooms
- A failure to ensure that equipment and devices provided were subject to a suitable system of maintenance in that the fire alarm system, emergency lighting system and firefighting equipment were not tested.
In addition, at the Dial Hotel, officers found both staircases from upper levels terminated in the same ground floor area with no alternative escape routes or separation, a locked fire exit door and exit routes obstructed by combustible materials.
The other offence at the Market Inn related to a missing fire door and a window not being fire resisting.
Mr. Liu was also ordered to pay costs of £15,000.
John O' Rourke as a person other than the responsible person who had some control of the premises, pleaded guilty to two counts (one for each hotel) of failing to provide a suitable and sufficient fire risk assessment, and was ordered to pay costs of £5,860.
