A trader who fitted an unsafe shower which a family used for weeks has been ordered to pay more than £3,000. Paul Frame, 37, from Sunderland, installed an electric shower at a family home in County Durham which was subsequently found to be unsafe and contravening wiring regulations. Frame was prosecuted by Durham County Council and has now been ordered to pay £3,261.20. Newton Aycliffe magistrates on Wednesday heard how the council’s trading standards team received a complaint from a resident about the shower fitted by Frame, sole director of HLS Home Improvements Limited. The complainant said she had agreed to pay Frame, who lives at Thornbank Close, £2,761.20 for a bathroom installation which included an electric shower.
However when the bathroom was fitted it was found that the shower installed was not the one the woman had ordered. The defendant told her to use it until the correct one could be sourced. The woman, her husband and children used the shower until it was replaced with the correct one in June. There was no instruction manual for either of the showers and was not given any paperwork relating to the installation. The shower flooded and after Frame failed to repair it, the woman had another plumber look at it. He advised it was not safe and suggested an electrician was called to inspect. He condemned the shower and these findings were endorsed by a council electrician who further found the installation to be substandard, in contravention of the British Standards Wiring Regulations not complying with the manufacturers’ installation instructions. The court was read a victim statement from the woman in which she said she felt “distraught” when the shower was condemned. “I feel I have been let down by HLS and find it difficult to comprehend that they placed the safety of my family at risk. “I had been allowing my children to use the shower for weeks and the thought that each time they did, their safety was at risk upsets me greatly.
Frame was charged with supplying an unsafe shower unit contravening the requirements of professional diligence. He pleaded guilty to both offences. Magistrates were told they were the result of an administrative error in ordering the wrong shower which then snowballed. Frame was ordered to pay compensation to the family of £2,761.20, a £350 fine and £150 costs. Joanne Waller, the council’s head of environment, health and consumer protection, said: “Traders have a legal and moral duty to ensure everything they are supplying is safe. This kind of commercial practice is unacceptable and this prosecution and the financial penalty imposed should send out a message that it will not be tolerated in County Durham.”
