Gassed by the pitta bread oven

The owners of a bakery are facing a huge fine after seven workers were poisoned by a faulty pitta bread oven which belched out deadly carbon monoxide gas.

Haralambos Tisattalou, 50, and Andrew Charalambous hired independent contractor Suraj Pankhania to fit the new oven at Michael’s Pitta Bread Bakery Ltd on the Trafalgar Trading Estate in Enfield.

Pankhania, 43, asked staff to help him shift the old oven and many were left feeling dizzy and faint.

He called an ambulance and seven staff were rushed to hospital where they received treatment for suspected carbon monoxide poisoning in a hyperbaric chamber.

The new oven had not been tested to ensure the gas lines had been properly connected before it was put into use, Southwark Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Mark Watson said: ‘A number of workers were present in the bakery on the morning of 8 November 2011 together with Mr Pankhania, the second defendant, and one of the co-directors.

‘The oven was operated once again and within a short period of time several workers were overcome with the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning.

‘Mr Pankhania himself was seen shaking and being sick outside the premises.

‘The premises were evacuated and several workers were taken to hospital suffering from dangerous levels of carbon monoxide poisoning.’

Health and safety inspectors later discovered that the fumes were collecting in the building because the chimney had not been safely installed.

Mr Watson said: ‘The flue, or chimney, which extended from the operating oven up the premises was not sufficiently high so as to disperse the dangerous gas produced by the oven.’

Mr Tsiattalou runs a number of bakeries on the Hotspur Industrial Estate in Tottenham, north London, and works as a lawyer for property businesses in Barnet and Enfield.

He sat through the trial with his business partner Mr Charalambous before their company was found guilty of failing in a duty to its employees under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

Pankhania was cleared of failing to ensure people other than his employees were not exposed to health and safety risks arising from the pitta bread ovens.

Jurors heard that gas engineer Steve Williams had not finished commissioning the oven before the defendants started to use it for production.

Mr Charalambous had received a warning on 6 November 2011 that the ‘ventilation at the site was inadequate’ and that the situation was ‘unbearable’.

‘The decision by these defendants to press on with the small oven in these circumstances clearly demonstrates the breach of duty which is alleged against both of them respectively,’ he added.

Bakery bosses had hired Pankhania to assist with the set-up of the oven but he insisted it was not his responsibility to ensure that it had been commissioned for use.

Pankhania, of Lakeview Chase, West Hamilton, Leicester, was cleared of failing to ensure people other than his employees were not exposed to health and safety risks arising from the pitta bread ovens.

Michael Pitta Bread Bakery, of (1412-1420) High Road, Whetstone, north London, was found guilty of failing in a duty to its employees under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

The company will be sentenced later today at Southwark Crown Court.
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