Pub chain fined £300k after landlord’s death

SOLIHULL-based pub chain Enterprise Inns has been fined £300,000 after one of its landlords died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Paul Lee was found unconscious by a cleaner at the Aintree Hotel, in the Bootle area of Merseyside, in November 2007, less than a month after taking over the pub.

He had turned on a gas fire in his living room 10 hours earlier before falling asleep.

The 41-year-old suffered a heart attack due to lack of oxygen on the way to the hospital and died the following morning without regaining consciousness.

The Health and Safety Executive said that tenants at 474 of the company’s pubs at been put at risk by the company.

The HSE prosecuted Enterprise Inns after an investigation found the fire might not have been serviced since 1979 and the chimney was completely blocked.

The company, which owns around 7,700 pubs across the UK and has an annual turnover of £818m, admitted breaching the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

Enterprise Inns was ordered to pay £19,000 towards the cost of the prosecution in addition to the fine at Liverpool Crown Court yesterday.

Liverpool Crown Court heard that Enterprise Inns should have ensured that gas safety inspections were carried out at 868 of its pubs at least every 12 months, but that only 394 had valid certificates.

The gas heater which caused Mr Lee’s death should have been checked before he took over the tenancy.

Enterprise Inns also received a written warning from the HSE in 2001, following a fire at one of its properties in Birmingham, which highlighted a systematic failure to implement annual gas safety checks, the HSE said.

Mr Lee’s sister Sharon said: “There is still anger and disbelief amongst his family and friends that it was entirely preventable.

“Paul’s death will very possibly save the lives of others in the future, but it should not have taken the loss of his life to highlight the wider failings of Enterprise Inns.”

HSE investigating officer Iain Evans added: “Tests we carried out on the gas fire at the Aintree Hotel showed that the workplace limit for exposure to carbon monoxide would have been exceeded within five minutes of it being turned on, and would have reached a level known to be fatal within an hour.

“What makes this case so tragic is that Mr Lee’s life could have been saved if Enterprise Inns had continued to obey the written warning it received about gas safety six years earlier.”

Picture: Mr Lee with his stepdaughter