Director took 'wilful' risks over fire safety

TWO MEN AND A MANAGEMENT COMPANY SENTENCED OVER RISKS AT BLOCK

- By CARL EVE

THE director of a Plymouth-based company has been ordered to carry out unpaid work for fire safety failures that placed residents of a Plymouth high-rise building at risk of death or serious injury.

The management company of which he was a director was also convicted and fined £12,000, while the company’s appointed fire risk assessor was told he must also carry out unpaid work.

The sentencing at Plymouth Crown Court follows a four-year investigation by Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service into the failings at Latitude 52 on Albert Road.

The two men - Stephen David Phillips, aged 56 and of Albert Road and Charles Morgan, 50 and of Church Road, Parkstone, Poole, as well as the management company which ran the block, offered guilty pleas to a series of charges on November 4 last year, days before a trial was due to start.

The failings at the apartment block were identified by a fire safety inspection carried out in 2021 as part of checks on high-rise residential buildings in the wake of the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

The building also had a combustible external wall system, while inspectors also found a number of serious defects, including the removal of smoke control fans and unauthorised building works that created a risk of fire spreading within the building.

Specifically, they found that: