Tyre company director sentenced for fire safety failings

The director of a scrap tyre yard has been handed a suspended prison sentence for a series of fire safety offences after an emergency fire door was nailed shut in a building where workers were living.

Sentencing Tyre Channel Ltd (TC Ltd) and its director Anup Patel at Southwark Crown Court His Honour Judge Hehir described the premises in Croydon as “a tinder box in the making”.

Patel and TC Ltd each pleaded guilty to three separate charges relating to breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. The company was ordered to pay a total of £70,000. Patel was given an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

London Fire Brigade (LFB) Fire Safety Officers visited the premises on Mill Lane after police raised concerns over poor fire safety conditions. Inspectors found a makeshift corridor constructed at the rear of the single-storey industrial unit with several rooms leading off it, including a kitchen and bedrooms which were used as living accommodation for workers at the site.

They found the premises heavily fire loaded with flammable items, including tyres stacked in excess of four metres high and issued a notice later the same day to prohibit the premises from being used for sleeping or residential use.

An emergency fire exit was nailed shut and inaccessible due to piled up tyres and there was no smoke detection in the building. The corridor, which bedrooms were accessed via, was constructed of plywood and would have offered little protection against fire spreading through the premises.