Food firm fined over fire safety breaches
A DIRECTOR of Birmingham food firm Mushtaq’s has admitted fire safety breaches at a former pub where his firm ran an Indian sweet shop.
Bashir Ahmed, 58, of Stratford Road, Sparkhill, was handed a 30-week suspended jail sentence over the condition of the building, while Mushtaq’s Ltd was fined £60,000 and ordered to pay £5,000 costs.
Two other men, Israr Raja and Akbar Jan, admitted breaching safety regulations.
Raja, 29, of Dorset Road, Coventry, was given a six-month suspended sentence. Jan, 50, of Lumb Lane, Bradford, had his case adjourned to a later date.
The prosecution was brought by West Midlands Fire Service after safety checks at the former General Wolfe pub in Foleshill Road, Coventry, revealed faulty fire alarms and missing or defective fire doors.
It was leased to Mushtaq’s in December 2011. The company ran a sweet shop on the ground floor and another part of the five-storey building was sub-let to Rajah and Jan.
The pair opened an Indian restaurant and there were bedrooms on the upper floors, Warwick Crown Court heard.
The fire safety breaches were found during inspections in June and July 2012.
Mark Jackson, for the fire service, said: “Even though Mushtaq’s and Mr Ahmed were fully aware the premises were to be used as a restaurant and for sleeping accommodation, the premises were passed over to Mr Jan and Mr Raja in an extremely dangerous state.
“No meaningful attempt was made to comply with even the most basic fire safety measures.”
Balbir Singh, for Ahmed, said the premises already had sleeping accommodation when Mushtaq’s took it on “so they assumed the fire doors and the like were already in place”.
Sentencing, Judge Andrew Lockhart QC said: “It was highly foreseeable that, in the event of a fire, these premises might have become a death trap.
“The breaches would have been obvious to anyone with even a passing interest in the safety of others. Anyone with a modicum of sense would have realised it was an extremely dangerous place.”