First Fire Alarm Engineer To Be Prosecuted

[james.wilson]

i had assumed it was conventional. Maybe its like those clowns that have took over one of jef's addressable jobs and blame him for wiring it in a ring!!!

scary that some people dont care about competancy as long as its cheap..... until its too late.

[PeterJames]

The failings of the alarm system came to light after a fire in the Trafford care home last year, in which one woman died.

There are some assumptions as to what happened, however, here are the facts 1) There was a Fire. 2) Someone died 3) The Fire alarm was investigated

Now from those three facts one can assume that in some way the fire alarm did not work or work soon enough for the home managers to have enough warning to evacuate the building.

Its possible that the alarm did not even work at all, the wired fuse holder blowing the circuit board, or the alarm silenced with the buzzer disabled and paint on the led, either way he got off lightly and in all he deliberately miss-led the customer into thinking they had a working Fire Alarm

[Guest Oxo]

When a sparks kills someone he gets jail time.

[Vince8282]

Hi Folks

I hope lessons can be learned from this case. Apart from being judgemental before establishing ALL the facts and not assuming this or that about what we do not know, sobering thought to us is the fact and I quote....

Onus of proving limits of what is practicable or reasonably practicable

34. In any proceedings for an offence under this Order consisting of a failure to comply with a duty or requirement so far as is practicable or so far as is reasonably practicable, it is for the accused to prove that it was not practicable or reasonably practicable to do more than was in fact done to satisfy the duty or requirement.

It appears that Mr Morris pleaded guilty to the charges and when shown photo's of the findings of the inspector from the bsi admitted under oath that he was unaware of what the photo's depicted so he clearly was not doing what he was paid for.

Going back to the onus being on the accused to prove his compliance/non-compliance was reasonable... let us suppose (just for the exercise)that we found ourselves in a similar scenario...what would we do?

Say for instance we had run out of fuses of the correct type and rating, it's 8 at night and the stores are shut...would we/you/me:

1) Phone your local engineer mate to see if he will drop one off for you?

2) Inform the owner/occupier/competent person that they will have to keep a special watch as the alarm system will not function correctly until you get the correct part?

3) Wrap a bit of wire around the blown fuse as what appears to have been the case in the real world ( not judging here but if he was unaware of the wire around the fuse he must have never been inside the panel for years if ever as part of a routine inspection should include checking fuses for the correct type and rating).

4) Use a piece of silver paper e.g. out of an old fag packet to wrap around the fuse?

5) Draw up a RAMS Risk Assessment Method Statement and safe system of work program until the system is 100% (giving copies to all concerned).

6) Fill in call form highlighting the situation with a view to return to rectify ASAP?

7) Use a fuse of the wrong rating just to get things working and say nowt to no one?(OMG)

8) Inform the staff on site or the competent person that he must not have been doing his testing properly as the weekly tests should have shown up the problem with the buzzer and paint over the light and therefore you no longer take responsibility for their failure to act as competent people?

9) Put your findings and reasonable intentions in writing, call form log book service record and run like hell? (also keep record in personal diary in case cops come and get you)

And a million other things engineers get up to.

The point I am making is we are all accountable for our actions and/or lack of actions. We need to ask ourselves are we doing all we can to protect ourselves and the lives of people we are being paid to protect? If the answer is yes then we can sleep at night if the answer is no then watch out! You could be in court next. Finally if we keep a diary of what we do and when we do it it will be taken as evidence that can help us to defend ourselves if ever the need arises. If we do things properly we will never need to but it is best to be safe than sorry.

best wishes

Vince

[Guest Oxo]

Sorry but all the above is rubbish (imo) - edit by Paddy

If it does not work or comply I tell the management that.

Refuse to sign anything off.

I have kept pesonal records of dire installations.

Dire is not descriptive enough...................................

One customer 5 yrs into maint and monitering..........................NO DIGI FITTED NO PHONE LINE AT PANEL.........................Yet every engineer before me said all signals tested.................

5 yrs.........two visits a year = 10 times some wa n k er lied.

[Vince8282]

What hasn't been made clear is if the issues were documented and what the resolution was to be - caught out without the correct fuse out of hours then you do what you have to agreed but you get back first thing in the AM with the fact that you have done a temporary repair documented in the log book and works report sheet,fault buzzer not working then document what needs to be done to rectify it (repair or replace panel or PCB) and again document it.In both cases the customer signs off on the report sheet to say that they are aware of the issues and possible results until rectified.

That is one of my points i.e. Nothing is clear because we do not have all the facts. e.g. Was the device in the terminal blocks a new buzzer that was fitted because the one that should be on the main board was faulty or fell off and it was more reasonable and practicable to fit one to the terminals that to solder one to the board. We can speculate until we're blue in the face and still we would not know.

Maybe the competent person on site did a deal with the sparky and everything was all right until the fire and then the proverbial matter hit the fan as the so called competent person saw the need of a scape goat he pointed the finger at the sparky. Was the sparky chosen on price and prepared to come all the way from Wales for a pittance because all the local Manchester firms would not touch it with a barge pole?

Like I said we just don't know we do not have all the facts. What we do know is now that there has been a prosecution it has set the needed precedent for the powers that be to hold the engineer responsible under the act of 2005.

What this means for us is if we do our jobs how we are expected to do them there is no problem but if we don't then we could find ourselves in court and rightly so.

I think the fines for the 2 counts were about £2500 each and costs of about £6000 total = about £11000 (hmmmm costs were more than the fines)

The moral of the story is Go the extra mile.....do more than you are expected to do in this way any court of justice will be on your side knowing that for your part you did all you reasonable could do.

best wishes

Vince

PS The death that followed the fire may not have been directly as a result of the fire, again we do not have all the facts, if it had been as a direct result I believe the charges would have been manslaughter charges not charges of culpable neglect. The sparky may have been advised to plead guilty to lesser charges so as to bring about the precedent and also avoid the more serious charge. I don't know all the facts and I very much doubt if anybody does. e.g. What caused the fire?

[hpotter]

would the person of survived had the fa been 100% fully operational?

did the brigade have an axe to grind? (pun unavoidable)

[jb-eye]

This post caused me to e-mail our admin to chase a medical centre who have a faulty fire alarm panel. The chargeing cuircuit had failed causing a fault buzzer to operate. We quoted a new panel as the existing is obsolete. Problem is my engineer disconected the fault buzzer and this seems to have removed the urgency from the customer.

i dont want to get a fine.

[hpotter]

or go to jail?

[norman]

signed for letter, outlining the fault and their liability.

or go to jail?

I suppose the soap in the shower may be similar to a puck?