A landlord who failed to maintain a central heatin

A landlord who failed to maintain a central heating boiler which gassed a member of the McLaren team walked out of the Old Bailey with a pnds stlg 2,000 fine today.

(TUES)

Accountant Amanda Rhys-Davies, 24, was found choking to death on the bathroom floor of her Surrey flat just three weeks after she moved in.

Boyfriend Wayne Court, 27, was also overcome by the carbon monoxide belching from the boiler in the kitchen.

The couple lay helpless together on the floor of their Woking home for three days before they were found.

Mr Court, who also worked for the formula one racing team, recovered from the ordeal, but Miss Rhys-Davies never regained consciousness and died in a specialist poisons unit.

Landlord Michael Wheeler, 57, of Marlyns Close, Guildford, was today (TUES) unanimously cleared by a jury of manslaughter.

Miss Rhys-Davies’ mother Gila was in floods of tears in the well of the court and was unable to comment on the verdict.

Wheeler and his wife Sheila, also 56, had already admitted two breaches of the Gas Safety Installation and Use Regulations (1998), under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

The offences reflected their failures to ensure both that the gas fitting and flu was properly maintained and that the boiler had been checked by a CORGI registered engineer in the 12 months before the lease on the address expired.

Wheeler was fined a total of pnds stlg 2,000 and ordered to pay pnds stlg 1,500 in costs.

His wife received an absolute discharge.

Prosecutor Mr Nigel Lithman QC alleged that Wheeler failed to carry out the necessary checks on the boiler which was ‘in a highly dangerous condition.

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He had bought the flat to rent out in November 1999 and Mr Court and Miss Rhys-Davies agreed to move in after viewing it in late December.

The newly decorated garden flat was their first home together, ideally situated near to McLaren HQ.

Wheeler let the home through an agency, Pilgrims of West Byfleet, Surrey, and had shown a member of staff around the flat before the sale went through.

‘She would have told him he would have had to provide a safety certificate before he moved a tenant into the flat,’ Mr Lithman said.

Wheeler was also given a leaflet called ‘Let’s Make It Safe’ outlining the potential dangers of gas boilers, but he did nothing, the jury heard.

‘As a landlord he ought to have been aware of the legal requirements to ensure that the boiler was safe and had been checked.

‘He had seen no maintenance or service record for the boiler from the previous owner of the flat.

‘It was a tragedy that need not have happened,’ Mr Lithman added.

Mr Wheeler had also arranged for the double glazing to be fitted and removed the ventilated section of window near to the boiler in the kitchen.

On January 8, 2000 the keys were handed over to the couple and they moved into the flat in Egley Road, Woking for a weekly rent of pnds stlg 625.

‘At no time was a landlord’s safety certificate handed over because indeed none had been obtained,’ Mr Lithman said.

‘At no time did Mr Wheeler indicate he had checked the boiler for safety.

They assumed it was safe to use.

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The QC explained that the boiler was in a ‘poor condition and producing a high level of carbon monoxide and the flu was sub-standard.

‘If it had worked properly harmless carbon dioxide would have been produced.

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Roy Coster, a registered CORGI engineer who later tested the device, told the court that it poured out deadly fumes within just 65 minutes of being turned on.

Mr Court had fired up the boiler on Saturday January 29 last year before taking a shower and making his way to work at McLaren International in Woking.

He left his girlfriend asleep in bed.

He had been suffering from headaches and felt so ill by 11.

30am that he decided to go back home to bed.

Miss Rhys-Davies went shopping when he came home and the boiler was switched off.

Tragically Mr Court switched it back on before he got into bed, the court heard.

He later told police he remembered his girlfriend coming home and their cat jumping on his bed before he went back to sleep.

When he woke up again later that day and staggered to the bathroom he found Miss Rhys-Davies lying semi-conscious on the floor.

‘He recalled her shouting out in an incoherent way, then he passed out,’ Mr Lithman said.

On the following Sunday Miss Rhys-Davies’s worried mother called at the flat because her daughter had not telephoned her as usual.

When she found the home in darkness she left, assuming the couple were out.

It was not until company bosses contacted the mother on the following Monday that the couple were found by Mr Court’s mother and sister.

‘They looked through the front door.

They could see Mr Court lying unconscious on the floor,’ Mr Lithman said.

‘He was undressed.

He was conscious but in a poor state of health.

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Mother and daughter smashed a glass panel to get into the flat.

They found Mr Court suffering from pressure sores all over his back from where he had been laying on the floor and was partially paralysed on his right side.

Miss Rhys-Davies was still breathing when she was rushed to St Peters Hospital in Chertsey.

She was transferred to the specialist unit at Queen Alexandria Hospital in Portsmouth but died there on February 3.

Mr Court had told the jury how he thought he and his girlfriend were just sleeping as they both lay critically ill on the bathroom floor.

The 27-year-old, who designs electrical components for McLaren engines, said the newly decorated garden flat was ‘ideal’ for him and Miss Rhys-Davies because they had a cat.

On the morning of the incident, Mr Court said he felt increasingly sick at work.

Later he vomited on the bathroom floor and he found Miss Rhys-Davies ‘panicking and in distress.

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‘At the time I thought and maybe still do, that she was panicking because I was obviously very ill.

‘She was on her hands and knees next to me in the bathroom.

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Mr Court then passed out on the bathroom floor.

‘I remember dreaming – I don’t I know when that was.

I remember hearing the phone ringing within my dream.

‘I remember seeing parts of the bathroom.

I remember knocking at the front door – loud knocking.

‘I didn’t answer.

I was comfortable where I was, lying on the floor of the bathroom.

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‘I didn’t have the energy to move.

Amanda was lying beside me.

She was unconscious.

I don’t know why but I thought we were just sleeping.

‘Sometime after, I don’t know how long after, I heard the window of the front door being smashed.

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Mr Wheeler had told the court of his profound regret for the tragedy.

‘A young girl like my own children has died.

It’s tragic,’ he said.

Wheeler had asked British Gas for a service two months before the accounts clerk was killed but the appointment was cancelled.

An engineer did not arrive to complete the pnds stlg 141 ‘three-star’ test until February 28 – a month after Miss Rhys-Davies died.

Passing sentence the Recorder of London, Judge Michael Hyam told the Wheelers: ‘In this case death resulted from the breach of the regulations but this emphatically was not a case where there was a failure to heed warnings nor was there risk taken to save money.

‘You, Mr Wheeler effectively have taken full responsibility for the breaches or the regulations.

‘I am satisfied that you were acting in good faith and doing everything which you thought at the time was necessary.

‘That included ordering and paying for a service of the boiler on November 26 – that is to say two months before the boiler evidently started emitting carbon monoxide, causing the death of one of the occupants and the severe illness of the other.

‘Had the service been carried out when you Mr Wheeler expected it would be, that is within the normal 28 days stated by British Gas there would have been no breach of the regulations.

‘Where you went wrong was in your failure to ensure the service was carried out before the tenants took up occupancy.

‘Had you realised that was your obligation I have not the slightest doubt you would have pressed British Gas to carry our the service and provide the certificate for which you had paid before the tenants moved in.

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The judge added Mrs Wheeler’s culpability was ‘nil.

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Wheeler was fined pnds stlg 2,000 and ordered to pay pnds stlg 1,500 costs.

The family of Miss Rhys-Davies are now expected to sue the Wheelers in the High Court.

ends