Warning over danger shops

From the Telegraph & Argus, first published Thursday 14th Oct 1999.

A coroner has spoken of his horror after learning that a shop had not had a safety check for 14 years.

The store was inspected months before Manzoor Arif was crushed by heavy stone bowls when shelving collapsed.

But Coroner Roger Whittaker still expressed his dismay that there had been such a long delay between inspections.

He also said the inspector who carried out the check prior to Mr Arif's deathwas not in a situation"where he had the expertise to decide on these matters"

And he warned that there could be many other shops "crying out for rectification" after he was told that there were 10,500 properties to be inspected but the Council could only deal with 10 per cent of them each year.

An inquest heard how 47-year-old Manzoor Arif, of Carlisle Road, Manningham, Bradford, died in the accident while he was browsing around a storeroom at N H Hardware store in Leeds Road, Bradford, in January.

The hearing was told that the shelving on which the bowls were stacked was of poor quality and ``inappropriate.''

A Council inspection of the shop had been carried out by an environmental health technician the previous November who concluded that, despite items being packed in the storeroom in a haphazard way, he did not believe the shelving would collapse.

After the jury returned an open verdict, Coroner Roger Whittaker said he would urge Bradford Council to inspect such properties more often.

But today a Bradford Council spokesman said the main responsibility for ensuring health and safety requirements lay with shop owners.

And it said N H Hardware owner Nazir Hussain had registered his business as a shop despite it having a substantially larger warehouse which would have meant it would have been a higher priority for an inspection.

Councillor Jim O'Neill, Bradford Council's Environmental Protection Committee chairman, said the number of health and safety officers was limited due to scarce resources.

He added: "If somebody has mis-described their property it could have led to them not being involved in a correct risk assessment.

"That's something we would have to look in to, whether it was done innocently or with intent in mind."

Speaking after the inquest jury had returned its verdict, Mr Whittaker said: ``I was horrified to learn that the inspection of premises such as this was delayed for 14 years.

``I shall be writing to the local authority in that context so that inspections can take place on a regular and much more frequent basis than they do.

``There must be many properties in the Bradford area which need inspection and there could be properties crying out for rectification.''

In his summing-up, Mr Whittaker had told the jury they might have been surprised to learn there were no binding regulations on the way in which such shelving could be constructed in that type of warehouse.

He said that the Council's environmental health technician Geoffrey Branson had been unfairly pilloried for the results of his inspection.

"I don't believe he was in a situation where he had the expertise to decide on these matters," he said.

Mr Whittaker added that although shop owner Mr Hussain accepted he had a duty of care, he was content to blame others for what had happened.

And he said he would be writing to the relevant Government department about the need for regulations on shelving.

``There's nothing which imposes responsibility on owners to provide appropriate shelving and to check it.''

Solicitor Rizwan Ahmad for shop owner Mr Hussain, said: "We are now fully aware of our health and safety obligations.

"The findings and the recommendations of the coroner will hopefully mean that there will never be another incident like this at a shop or warehouse in the whole of West Yorkshire."

Mr Arif's widow Kaukab Arif, and her teenage children Asmara, Baasit and Muazzam, spoke after the hearing through their solicitor Idris Mir.

"The family suffered a traumatic experience due to the terrible circumstances of the death," said Mr Mir.

"It has been hanging over them for six months and the family are glad the formalities are over.

"The jury accepted it was not an accident and that speaks volumes. There are a number of parties whose actions have been criticised but the family is not here to apportion blame on anyone."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.

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