Plumber accused of causing gas blast was later promoted
A PLUMBER accused of causing a gas blast which flattened a pensioner couple’s home while they were inside has been promoted since the explosion.
Craig Hall had installed a new boiler at Marion and Robin Cunningham’s home.
He double-checked it was ‘gas tight’ before starting the central heating. But he later conceded that restricted space made it difficult to visually inspect his work.
Hall, promoted to plumbing manager at Stirling-based TRS Plumbing and Heating Services since the 2013 blast, said: ‘It passed on two different tests, everything was fine, no problems at all. There was no smell of gas, no leaks, the boiler was working and the customer was happy.’
Hall, 35, told Stirling Sheriff Court he remembered soldering all joints on the boiler, which he installed in August 2012.
But he said he had to accept expert evidence solder had not ‘run’ in a so-called ‘Yorkshire fitting’ joining a gas pipe to the boiler which was found after the blast to have separated, allowing gas to leak. Hall returned to the Cunninghams’ home in Callander, Perthshire, in February 2013 to adjust a pipe on the boiler, and again smelled no gas.
Cross-examined by prosecutor Shona McJannett, he agreed that the British Standards Institution advice for soldering a ‘Yorkshire fitting’ stated ‘the finished joint shall be visibly examined to confirm that solder has run’.
He said he accepted that on all other pipes he attached to the boiler, a ‘ring’ of solder was visible. Referring to the gas pipe joint, he said: ‘It’s in a tight space, that’s why testing methods are in place as well.’
On March 28, 2013, leaking gas ignited causing a blast which badly damaged Marion and Robert Cunningham’s home. The couple, now 79 and 81, were both injured.
Hall, of Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, denies causing the blast by breaching the Gas Safety (Installations and Use) Regulations 1988.
He also denies an alternative charge under the Health and Safety at Work Act of failing to take reasonable care for the couple’s safety.
The trial continues.