DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

As you may have seen from quite a few of my posts I do not advise anyone to carry out DIY gas work. I will always suggest getting a CORGI registered engineer out - as I know what can and will go wrong. I know what mistakes DIYers make.

And as you may have seen - there's always someone (normally not CORGI registered) that will disagree.

At the end of the day I would expect people to use abit common sense - they know what they are capable of.

I only come on here to help and offer advice - whether you take that advice, do a professional job or bodge it - has nothing to do with me and I'm not particularly interested, it's your life, your house and your family that could be at risk - not mine. I sleep at night knowing every job I do is safe.

So in every post I write I will give the advice on the fault, parts to be repaired how to repair and replace - but will always advise employing a CORGI registered installer.

According to the Daily Mail of 19th December 2007, p24, two British Gas engineers were charged with manslaughter of a housewife found gassed to death in her home., allegedly after ten safety inspections failed to spot problems with her boiler.
Does anybody know the outcome of this case (Oxford Magisrates Court)?

outcome:

Detective Constable ____________, who led a police inquiry into the death, said a file of evidence seeking a manslaughter charge against British Gas was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service but a decision had been made not to prosecute due to lack of evidence.

A similar quote to the one you gave appears in The Oxford Times (www.oxfordmail.net) of 28th July 2006. Events have moved on since then and manslaughter charges have now been bought. The details can be seen in The Oxford Times of 20th December 2007 ( search under gas poisoning).

Read the article of 20th December 2007,

And I wouldn't expect anything less. You can't have people dying after gas appliances have been checked - a number of times on this occasion. And for no-one to be held accountable. With the gas appliance only being checked the day before the lady died, does cast doubt over what the heating engineer checked, and his competence.

I'm sure the courts will get to the bottom of it and decide whether it was human error, or accidental death. There could have been 10 other heating engineers there within a week - but it's the last heating engineer to attend that is responsible for the safety of that appliance.

Will it turn out to be a heating engineer that has sat a Fast Track Gas training course ? If it is - I hope lessons are learnt from this and they scrap the fast track courses.

I have a found a number of articles on the net - aimed at plumbers,bathroom and kitchen fitters, saying that with training they can become CORGI registered after 4 weeks training.

I had to complete a 4 year apprenticeship, NVQ 2 & 3 Plumbing, whilst working with heating engineers and plumbers. 1 year Gas training, 5 day intensive training before sitting CCN1 assessment. Then 5 Day intensive training, and 5 days assesments for CEN1, HTR1, CKR1, WAT1, DAH1 - before I qualified.

I have heard Britich Gas offer these fast track courses - and they advertise with NO experience necessary - not even plumbing. I know people that have completed the BG course - and I wouldn't let them work in my house.

One person that's a service engineer (trained with BG), I have been to the same job within 2-3 days because the boiler has gone off - and put his work right, from gas escapes to ignition faults etc that should be part of the annual service - had a word but took it no further (gave him a chance) other engineers have done the same (with the same service engineer) haven't had any problems for a couple of months now, if we get anymore though, should we report him ?