FIRE safety breaches at a city centre hotel — including screwing a fire door shut — put lives at risk, a court has heard.
The director and company behind The Grand Hotel in Swansea has admitted six breaches of fire safety regulations including screwing a fire door shut, failing to have lighting guiding towards a fire door, no fire alarm and not completing a risk assessment.
Prosecuting barrister David Stotesbury QC said the sealed fire door should have given emergency access to High Street.
"As a result, if a fire broke out people would have endeavoured to go to and escape at that fire exit and be unable to exit into a place of safety. In the view of the fire service they would have been overcome by smoke and fumes and would have died," said Mr Stotesbury.
He said, in a fire, the lack of emergency lighting could have contributed to people being disorientated, confused and becoming overcome by smoke.
The breaches were found during an inspection in 2011 at a new wing of the four-storey hotel, owned by Ivey Place Limited, on High Street.
As two fire officers arrived, they found a staff member from Great Western Trains had been asked by the manager to move his planned meeting from the main building into the new wing.
Mitigating for both defendants, Ben Blakemore said no-one had been hurt and the number of people that could have been hurt minimal.
He said the problems were a "system lapse" and the new wing should not have been open to the public.
After city magistrates fined the company £1,500 and director Wayne Bellamy an additional £500, David Phillips from Mid and West Wales Fire Service said: "The owners and managers of the Grand Hotel failed to fulfil their duty of care and have been dealt with accordingly. Fire safety regulations exist to protect people from the risk of death and serious injury from fire."