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New Look fined £400,000 after Oxford Street fire
25.11.09
A top High Street chain was fined a record £400,000 for fire safety breaches today after a devastating blaze turned one of their Oxford Street branches into a potential death trap.
The New Look store, which had been stricken by inadequate emergency exits and poor staff training, was also ordered to pay more than £136,000 costs for what Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC said could have been a "disaster almost too awful to contemplate".
London's Southwark Crown Court heard the place had been packed with early evening shoppers when smoke began pouring from a second storey window.
Even though the alarm sounded, it was mysteriously turned off and customers were allowed to continue making purchases.
Even when it reset itself and began again, staff failed to react.
It was only when passers-by shouted warnings that they realised there was a problem, started "panicking" and ordered everyone out.
The court was told that by the time people began streaming through the front door, smoke was billowing from the building and windows were being blown out.
Some of those fleeing fell over while others ducked shards of glass raining from above.
A 999 call from the store was made by a security guard just before 7pm on April 26, 2007 - several minutes after the manager of a building opposite had already alerted the emergency services.
One shopper, Joanne Weaver, who said the fire alarm went off "intermittently", said an initial absence of staff reaction did nothing to "suggest there was a problem".
So she wandered down to the basement - potentially the most dangerous place during the fire with no properly available first exit - and browsed through the shoe section.
Some 20 other customers were also there. Eventually, a member of staff told her the place was being evacuated.
Despite "a sort of panic" then setting in, there was still "no advice or assistance" given to shoppers, and no explanation as to what the problem was.
So, left to her own devices, she ran up an escalator, across the ground floor - unwittingly breaching a cardinal evacuation safety rule by passing beneath the raging fire above - and out through the front door.
"I could hear the sound of windows breaking - and I felt the heat."
She added: "Staff within the shop did not seem to have a plan to evacuate people. They went from no cause for alarm, to panic."
The court heard that all 150 people in the clothing retailer's store managed to escape unharmed, while another 300 were cleared from neighbouring premises.
Prosecutor Sada Naqshbandi said 30 Fire Brigade appliances ended up at the scene.
"The West End became gridlocked as traffic was diverted from the area and fire fighters worked through the night."
She said the area remained closed to traffic for a further two days, although the Fire Brigade remained in attendance for more than a week.
The blaze, which "virtually gutted" the building, forcing its demolition, was later found to have started in the second floor storeroom. The cause was never discovered.
New Look Retailers Ltd - which has more than 600 stores in Britain and abroad, 20,000 employees and is 30th in the Sunday Times 100 Top Track list of private companies - pleaded guilty to two counts.
They accused it of failing to provide both a "suitable and sufficient" fire risk assessment for the premises and adequate safety training to staff.
They were fined £250,000 for the first offence and £150,000 for the second.
The £400,000 total is not only the largest imposed on a company in Britain for fire safety contraventions since new legislation came into force in 2006, but is thought to be the biggest ever financial penalty for such breaches.
Sentencing, Judge Rivlin said although the Weymouth-based company, which enjoyed a £1.25 billion turnover and £217 million pre-tax profits for the last financial year, had admitted two offences, their failures represented a string of breaches originally included in a 35-count indictment.
After the hearing a New Look spokesman said: "The incident in 2007 was an unfortunate and concerning time for us all, and as a responsible business we immediately initiated a comprehensive review of our health and safety procedures.
"New Look has never been deemed negligent in any way for the fire, but the business has fully taken on board the recommendations presented at the inquiry and will continue to strengthen its company guidelines and working practices to ensure full compliance."
Reader views (4)
According to me until they are allowed to make judgments, all the preparation will be wasted. In this case, it seems that the assumption was made that the alarm was faulty, rather than checking the areas covered by sensors to eliminate all areas.
- Hussey, India
This is the product of a culture of extreme health & safety laws and practices, which have in effect, smothered plain common-sense. Nobody these days is allowed to apply personal judgement for fear of retribution, we are breeding a nation of 'clones'.
You can do fire risk-assessments until you are blue in the face, train people to a high state of readiness, but, until they are allowed to make judgements, all the preparation will be wasted. In this case, it seems that the assumption was made that the alarm was faulty, rather than checking the areas covered by sensors to eliminate all areas. If that had been done, within a few minutes, the fire would have been discovered.
I deal with H & S for my company, and most of my days are spent completing reports, assessments etc, rather than getting on running the business effectively
- Brian Evans, Stratford upon Avon, England
If the emergency exits were inadequate how did the store open in the first place? Does the fire service not conduct inspections any more?
- Mdj E10, london uk
interestingly the current oxford street store near Marble Arch has horrible steep steps at the entrance and the floor is crammed to bursting with rails and rails of clothes, makes for a horrid shopping experience so I hate to think if another incident happened, how difficult it could be for people to evacuate.
- Sharon, London
