A Bradford landlord has been prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for breaching gas safety regulations at a property where a mother and her two children lived.
Bradford Magistrates' Court heard yesterday (2 January) that Khalid Khan had repeatedly ignored a series of warnings from the HSE and from Bradford Council to provide proof that an annual safety check on gas appliances in the house had been carried out.

The court heard that the council had contacted Mr Khan on a number of occasions between November 2009 and April 2011 asking him for the landlord's gas safety certificate for the property. Mr Khan also left the tenant and her two children, both aged under ten, without hot water and heating for several months.

When Mr Khan failed to produce evidence of a gas safety inspection being carried out, the council alerted HSE. The faulty boiler was replaced by the local authority.

HSE served an enforcement notice on Mr Khan giving him a month to produce the record. The Court was told that despite this, to date, no gas safety certificate had been produced for the property at any point since the tenant moved in back in 2007.

Mr Khan denied a charge of breaching the Gas Safety (Installation & Use) Regulations 1998 and failing to comply with the HSE's Improvement Notice. However, the court found him guilty of both offences and he was ordered to undertake 200 hours of unpaid community service over 12 months and pay £1,500 towards prosecution costs.