New Look fined £400,000 for fire safety breaches

Late last year high street retailer New Look was hit with a heavy fine of £400,000 due to fire safety breaches.

A combination of lack of health and safety coupled with untrained staff lead to a blaze at a branch of the retailer on Oxford Street, Central London.

It's hard to believe, but staff in the store disabled the fire alarm when it went off, and ignored smoke on the evening of April 26th, 2007. Even though the store was full of shoppers, and smoke is usually a very bad sign, staff members decided to ignore the problem.

It wasn't until glass was heard breaking and the store started to heat up that an evacuation was carried out. The fire had taken hold on the 2nd floor storeroom.

Once the fire had been put out it was too late and the building damage was so great it had to be demolished. New Look was taken to court over the incident and fined £250,000 for a lack of fire risk assessment, and £150,000 for not training staff.

The judge in the case at Southwark Crown Court said:

"We are here dealing with a multitude of very real and deeply disturbing breaches, resulting in a system falling a very long way below the standard required and to be expected of a company of this size. As a result of these failures the potential for real human tragedy was always there."

Alongside the £400,000 fine another £136,000 was demanded to pay costs.

New Look has since reviewed health and safety alongside training for all its store staff.

Source: BBC News