Kewal Singh RamaGAZETTE & HERALD: Pines Hotel owner Kewal Singh Rama will have to pay out more than £8,000 for breaking key fire regulations that could have cost the lives of his clients, after a blaze at the hotel in 2002.

Rama, of the Pines Hotel in Marshfield Road, Chippenham, faced a total of five charges. He pleaded guilty to two matters at a hearing in December leaving combustible material, in this case bags of rubbish, in a corridor leading to a fire exit, and failing to ensure 17 fire doors within the building were kept closed.

But he pleaded not guilty to charges of failing to ensure a final exit door was easy to open, failing to test the hotel's fire alarm on a weekly basis and failing to check the lighting on a monthly basis.

At a trial at Chippenham Magistrates Court on Monday and Tuesday, Rama was convicted of the first of these three charges but cleared of the other two.

Rama, who was also convicted in 1996 for bolting and padlocking exit doors at the Pines, was this week fined a total of £4,750 with £3,268.35 costs.

After the trial Mark Gaskarth, assistant divisional officer working in fire safety, said: "I am pleased that for the main charge, the one we were most concerned about, he was found guilty.

"It was the most serious and directly related to people's means of escape.

"There could have been a fatality and we only acted to protect the lives of the staff and guests at the hotel."

The case was brought by Swindon Borough Council's health and safety executive. Prosecutor James Wilson-Smith told the court the breaches came to light during a fire at the hotel on November 7, 2002, when a guest deliberately started a blaze in his room.

Firefighters and ambulance staff attended at about 9.30pm but when they tried to use a fire exit door at the front of the hotel they found it bolted, with a padlock securing the bolt in the closed position.

The trial hinged on the conflicting evidence of the firefighters and ambulance personnel, who said they could not open the door, and the defence witnesses, including guests and contractors, who were convinced the padlock retained the bolt in the open position, and that the bolt was never drawn across the door.

Sub Officer Paul Nicholson, the officer in charge of the first appliance to arrive at the Pines, told magistrates no-one was available at the hotel when he arrived to give him information about who was in the building.

Two firefighters with breathing apparatus were sent in through the main door, he said, and they found a corridor full of smoke. To get a hose reel inside the hotel they needed to open the fire exit door, at the left of the front of the hotel but Sub Officer Nicholson said they could not open it because of the bolt and padlock.

Ambulance technician Andrew Richardson attended the Pines that night and helped the injured man, who had started the fire, from the building and said they had to use the main entrance because the fire exit would not open.

Firefighters Pete Crow, Adrian Frances and Julian Hancock also told magistrates they could not use the door because it was locked, and they were forced to break a window to feed the hose reel through.

Station Officer Hancock also said Rama was uncooperative when they arrived and insisted the fire was under control and their services were not needed.

But Rama, who bought the hotel in 1994, denied speaking to firefighters on the night of the fire, saying he was ushered out of the building by police.