A PLUMBING company and two sub-contractors have been sentenced following an investigation into faulty gas installations in Poole and Reading.

The Health and Safety Executive found defects in 90 per cent of the 340 properties at Poole’s Harbour Reach development when it inspected the site in 2007.

Southampton firm DSI Plumbing and Heating, now in liquidation, was fined £11,000 at Bournemouth Crown Court yesterday after pleading guilty to two counts of breaching health and safety regulations in respect of nine properties.

Plumbers Robert Percival, 49, of Legion Road, Poole, and Andrew Church, 42, of Ensign Drive, Gosport, received conditional discharges after pleading guilty respectively to one count of breaching health and safety regulations and one count of falsely commissioning boilers when they had not been inspected.

HSE head of operations Harvey Wild said afterwards: “These serious failings involving gas safety only came to light after residents started to complain about ill-health. It is fortunate that in this case, no-one suffered long term ill-effects but the consequences of the faults, if left undetected, could have been fatal.”

In mitigation, it was said that at both sites hatches had not been installed to allow the flue system to be inspected, and that defects were found with the equipment itself.