An unregistered gas fitter from Sheffield has been prosecuted by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) for putting a family in danger when he installed a boiler and left it in an immediately dangerous condition.
A week after gas experts capped it off and attached a warning notice, Mahmood Khan, of Sheffield, returned. He ignored the fact that the boiler at the family's rented home in City Road had been capped off, ignored a warning notice, ignored the faults and reconnected the supply.
On 13 December Sheffield Magistrates Court heard that in doing so, he had displayed a total disregard for the family, a mother and two children, and had knowingly exposed them to serious risk of injury, or even death, over several weeks.
Mr Khan's prosecution was instigated after an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which had been alerted by a National Grid engineer in January 2012.
The court heard the engineer visited the City Road property and found the central heating boiler was 'immediately dangerous'. He capped it off, left a warning notice and told the tenant it needed to be repaired by a Gas Safe registered engineer.
The tenant informed the landlord by phone the same day and the HSE wrote to her a day later repeating the engineer's advice. However, a week later Mr Khan visited the property and reconnected the boiler but failed to rectify any of the defects.
A few weeks later, HSE again wrote to the landlord advising her to have the boiler checked and asked for the details of the man who had reconnected it but received no reply.
In March, a Gas Safe regional investigator visited the tenant's home and found the boiler had been reconnected and left in a still-dangerous condition. He again capped it off and left another warning notice. The landlord then did acquire a new boiler and had it fitted by a Gas Safe registered engineer.
The court was told the identification of Mr Khan had not been possible until the landlord of the property, herself prosecuted by HSE last year for several breaches of the Gas Safety regulations relating to the same property, finally provided sufficient information.
Mr Khan pleaded guilty to four offences under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 committed between 15 July 2011 and 15 March 2012. He was handed a suspended six month jail sentence (six months per offence but to run concurrently) and was also ordered to pay £600 in costs. His sentence is suspended for twelve months.
