A COMPANY put the lives of its workers at risk by ignoring fire safety regulations, a court heard.
District Judge Marie Mallon described the breaches at Bradley-based firm Joseph International Ltd as so serious that there would been deaths had there been a blaze in the building.
She committed the bed manufacturing company to be sentenced by a crown court judge following yesterday’s hearing in Huddersfield.
Managing director Tahir Zaman pleaded guilty to all five charges when he appeared on behalf of the firm.
The company is based at Express House in Station Road and employs around 25 people with part of the building open to the public.
Sarah Dimmock, prosecuting on behalf of West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service, said that the offences were brought under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
The order requires the responsible person to consider how to protect anyone lawfully on the premises, including fire risk reduction and escape routes.
Ms Dimmock said that the building was examined by senior fire safety inspector Alexander Brierley and station manager Richard Doyle on August 26 and 27, 2010.
The inspection came following complaints from Kirklees Council building control about the dangerous state of a mezzanine floor recently constructed in the building.
The company had failed to keep an up-to-date risk assessment and take into account the major increase in risk levels following its construction.
The building’s escape routes were found to be blocked and the fire doors were locked and unavailable.
Ms Dimmock said: “If considered properly it would have been obvious to anyone that there were risks that needed to be addressed.
“(There were) obstructed fire doors and the means of escape for those working on the newly constructed mezzanine had not been considered.”
The company failed to keep routes to emergency exits clear.
A fire door on the first floor was blocked with several mattresses stacked on top of one another, while on the ground floor of the factory the exit door was blocked by items used in production.
Mattresses and combustible materials were stored on the stairs in the protected stairway.
Ms Dimmock said these would all have to be negotiated should a fire break out.
Also found was a roller shutter door which was the fire exit at the end of an escape route at the bottom of two flights of stairs.
The prosecutor said: “The roller shutter was locked closed and staff would have needed a key.
“Finding it closed they would have then had to retrace their steps back into the area of fire.
“The ground floor of the factory was blocked by a locked roller shutter door behind it preventing it from opening.”
The company also failed to ensure that workers could evacuate the premises as quickly as possible.
Ms Dimmock said: “Even if exits had been readily available the travel distances to reach those exits were totally unacceptable.
“In a factory, in a high risk area, an acceptable distance to travel to reach safety is 12 metres.
“In this case employees would have to travel between 42 to 70 metres – that is between four and six times the distance allowed.”
The prosecutor said for those working on the mezzanine floor the only means of escape was via an ‘inadequate’ moveable staircase that could fall away from the floor if people panicked and overloaded it.
The company also ignored a prohibition notice not to use the mezzanine floor other than for the removal of stock until an adequate means of escape had been provided.
It has received two further enforcement notices since the date of the offences.
Ms Dimmock said: “The company must realise the danger it placed its employees in given the difficulties they would have faced in attempting to leave the premises.
“One can only imagine what would have happened had it been an emergency situation.
“In the opinion of the fire authority these failures place one or more persons at risk of death or serious injury.”
Mr Zaman, who was not represented in court, said that the company had a turnover of £3m a year.
He wept as he explained that he only set it up to give the money he made to charity.
Mr Zaman said that he had the shutters on the doors to prevent thefts and has since given more keys to staff.
He said he has had the mezzanine floor removed and is being prosecuted by Environmental Health after throwing the flooring into the canal.
Judge Mallon told him that she was sending the company to crown court as the offences were too serious to be dealt with by her.
She said: “If you’d had a fire it’s hard to see how there wouldn’t have been anything other than a number of deaths.
“The whole point of these regulations is to provide a safe place of work.”
The company will be sentenced at Bradford Crown Court on March 9.
