Family's disgust at £1k fine over young mother's electrocution death

Emma Shaw was killed while dealing with a leak from a boiler at her flat in West Bromwich.

The 22-year-old was found dead in a storage room by her partner Andrew Cross after he returned home from work to answer her frantic text messages about a pipe which had fallen off and saying 'the electrics were sparking'. Her son Brayden who was aged 23 months at the time, had been in the living room of the Jefferson Place flat in Grafton Road, when she was electrocuted.

Neil Hoult, a 53-year-old supervisor, had signed off electrical circuits as problem-free and was found guilty of one charge of failure to discharge a duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act.

He was yesterday ordered to pay a £1,000 fine – the only penalty available under the Act. Miss Shaw's mother Diane Potter said she was unhappy with the sentence, saying it was 'not justice'.

But she said she hoped it would allow the family to finally grieve properly as the court case concluded more than six years after her daughter's death in 2007.

She revealed how heartbreaking it had been to hear Brayden warn her about putting in a plug when she had been near water when he was younger, saying 'careful nan, that's how mommy died'.

"I'm glad court has finished. It's gone on for more than six years. I haven't been able to grieve."

The court heard a victim impact statement from Mrs Potter taken before the court case concluded, in which she described hers and Miss Shaw's relationship as more like best friends than mother and daughter. The two had spoken to one another on the phone when Miss Shaw was worried about the leak and the electrics.

She added: "The best way to describe the impact it's had is that my world is now like a jigsaw puzzle and there is a missing piece.

She paid tribute to her daughter, a former Willingsworth High School pupil in Tipton, who had been working in the restaurant at Asda in Great Bridge.

Mrs Potter added: "She was bubbly and confident and had so many friends. She got on with everybody."

Miss Shaw's father Paul, who now lives in Ireland, said he spoke to his daughter on an old mobile phone the day before she died about Christmas presents and had refused to throw away the handset since.

He said in his own statement to the court: "She was in her first home, she was preparing for Christmas and a looking forward to the bright and happy future she should have had.

"Brayden is now eight years old and he is growing up without his mother, which is just not right."

Hoult, aged 53, from Dane Terrace, Rowley Regis, had signed off the electrical circuits at Miss Shaw's flat as safe but investigations later revealed a circuit which fed an immersion heater in the boiler had been penetrated by a screw during the flat's construction.

Hoult had not been based on site as his responsibility was to check the details on forms sent in by workers before signing them off.

Mr Gary Bell, defending him, said a 'catalogue of errors' took place before Hoult wrote his signature – and his role was not spotting anomalies on forms that should have triggered suspicions some of the work had not been properly checked.

Passing sentence yesterday, Judge Michael Dudley explained law set out he could only fix an amount the defendant could afford to pay within 12 months, which is why it 'may seem light'.

The judge told Hoult: "You have been convicted of a grave breach of duty. You were responsible for the failures in checking paperwork.

"Because of your failures and those of others who created this situation, you failed to detect a metal stud frame behind a plaster board at the house was live for a period of some 18 months.

"There was a leak in the boiler, the water soaked the carpet and that too became live and led to the inevitable death of Emma Shaw."

The judge said Hoult, who is no longer in the supervisory role, had to pay back the fine within 12 months or face 30 days imprisonment if he was in default.

Hoult's co-accused Christopher Tomkins, 52, from Rowley Village, Rowley Regis, was found not guilty by jurors yesterday.