Care Home Operator Heavily Fined Following Resident’s Tragic Fire Death

Care home operators who fail in their duty to keep residents safe can expect severe punishment. That was certainly so in the case of a wheelchair-dependent man who was engulfed by flames whilst smoking outside the care home where he lived.

The man, who had suffered a stroke, had been resident in the home for almost a decade. He was a known smoker and had been left alone in a sheltered outdoor area to enjoy a cigarette. He caught fire and, despite desperate efforts to extinguish the blaze, it was too late to save his life. He was 69 when he died.

He had been prescribed treatment with a paraffin-based emollient cream, which can impregnate clothes, increasing their flammability. The evidence suggested that the cream had not been applied to him on the day of his death or in the immediately preceding days. However, the possibility that the cream had played a part in the conflagration that engulfed him could not be eliminated.

The care home’s operator later pleaded guilty to a breach of fire safety regulations and was fined £937,500. It was also ordered to pay £104,425 in prosecution costs. The sentencing judge accepted that it was not the worst case of its kind but went on to assess the level of the operator’s culpability as high.

He found that the operator missed opportunities to address the fire risks to smokers in its care. Despite previous warnings, there was a lack of understanding of the fire risk posed by the use of paraffin-based emollient creams. Had the operator reacted appropriately, it would have been routine for a member of staff to maintain a watch on resident smokers in the area where the man died.

In challenging the fine before the Court of Appeal, the operator argued that it had not been proved to the criminal standard that failings on its part had contributed more than minimally to the man’s death. It also asserted that residents could not be subjected to constant supervision without their consent when smoking. Its level of culpability should have been assessed as medium, rather than high.

Dismissing the appeal, however, the Court noted that fire is an especially potent, life-threatening hazard and that serious breaches of fire safety regulations must be met by severe penalties. It noted the home manager’s evidence that multiple vulnerable residents were permitted to smoke unsupervised for half an hour or more. Multiple residents also used paraffin-based products. Overall, there was no proper basis for interfering with the judge’s careful assessment of culpability.