Terrifying gas explosion obliterated couple’s life

COURT: Plumber denies causing gas explosion that destroyed elderly couple’s home

They always led quite quiet, routine lives, and I would say they were utterly overwhelmed. DAUGHTER OF ELDERLY COUPLE WHOSE HOUSE EXPLODED GIVES EVIDENCE IN COURT.

A teacher told a court yesterday that a gas explosion which obliterated her elderly parents’ home while they were inside had destroyed their independence and shattered their lives.

Lyn Cunningham said her formerly independent mum and dad, Marion and Robin Cunningham, now 79 and 81, “became dependent overnight” after the blast in March 2013.

Plumber Craig Hall is accused of causing the explosion by incorrectly installing a new combi boiler at their two-bedroom bungalow in Murdiston Avenue, Callander, Perthshire.

It is alleged that Hall, 35, failed to ensure a gas pipe was properly supported when he fitted the equipment eight months earlier.

As a consequence, it is alleged, the supply pipe separated from an inlet pipe, to which it should have been joined, allowing gas to escape and ignite.

Stirling Sheriff Court was told the new boiler had been ordered from Stirlingbased TRS Plumbing and Heating Services after Mr and Mrs Cunningham’s previous boiler began to give trouble.

Shortly before 6am on March 28 2013, their house was “totally demolished” by an explosion which, it is agreed, was caused by gas.

Mr and Mrs Cunningham were both rescued from the rubble by firefighters.

Mr Cunningham was taken by air ambulance to the Southern General Hospital in Glasgow with a back injury and burns.

Mrs Cunningham was taken to Glasgow Royal Infirmary with less serious injuries.

Nine nearby houses had to be evacuated.

Miss Cunningham, 56, said her mother had been left “frail and very anxious” by what happened, while her father’s Parkinson’s had “obviously progressed”.

The high school English teacher said that from visiting them once a fortnight, since the blast she now saw them every day.

She said: “They always led quite quiet, routine lives, and I would say they were utterly overwhelmed, and they actually didn’t have the ability to put their lives back together again – it was too much.

“When you’re in your 70s and everything that’s familiar suddenly disappears – I remember thinking that they’d get back some of their sense of responsibility and independence, but they didn’t. “They became dependent overnight.” Miss Cunningham added that the night before the blast she had walked past her parents’ home and “smelled something” which she realised “with hindsight” might have been gas.

Hall, of Palisker, Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, denies causing the blast by carrying out the installation of the boiler dangerously and otherwise than in accordance with appropriate standards.

He also denies an alternative charge, under the Health and Safety at Work Act, of failing to take reasonable care for the Cunninghams’ safety as a result of his “acts or omissions”.

The summary trial, before Sheriff William Gilchrist, continues today.

The Cunninghams’ home in Callander, Perthshire, was destroyed by the early morning gas explosion in March 2013.