| Two London landlords have been punished for breaching fire safety regulations |
Two Haringey landlords have been sentenced to six months imprisonment and ordered to pay £5000 costs each for breaching fire safety regulations, after a successful prosecution by London Fire Brigade.
The prosecution followed a fire at a house converted into bedsits, on Hampden Road, N8, on 31 March 2007.
Sentencing of the building's owners Michael de Havilland and Sally Fox, of Muswell Hill, took place at Wood Green Crown Court today (Friday 12 June), after de Havilland and Fox pleaded guilty to the breaches.
After the fire, London Fire Brigade Fire safety inspectors found multiple breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
These breaches included inadequate fire detection systems, lack of proper fire doors on bedrooms or the communal kitchen, no emergency lighting in the building's stairway, lack of firefighting equipment such as a fire extinguisher or fire blankets and no fire risk assessment available for inspection.
As a result of the breaches a further inspection was arranged where it was requested that the owners were present so that these could be highlighted, and an enforcement notice was issued, explaining that the breaches needed to be dealt with.
After further contact with the co-owners and further inspections over a number of months, inspecting officers found that no work to make the premises safe had been completed.
Brian Coleman AM FRSA, Chairman of the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority said: "This is our second prosecution resulting in a custodial sentence and again sends out a strong message to landlords and building owners. Our role is to keep Londoners safe, and where we see that you are not taking your legal fire safety responsibilities seriously, we will take action."