Kamal Bains (pictured outside court) repeatedly ignored requests to install smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors
A heartbroken mother has told of her agony after her two young sons died in a house blaze as the landlord who failed to fit smoke alarms in their house was jailed.
Emma Taylor told a court how she has been left devastated after her sons Logan, 3, and Jake, 2, died in a fire, adding: ‘I wake up in the middle of the night to my boys crying, but they are not there.’
Kamal Bains, 51, repeatedly ignored requests to install smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors at the rented property before the fire in February 2016.
Bains was today jailed after the judge concluded the harm caused by his failure not to fit the alarms ‘could not have been more serious’.
Laws brought in during October 2015 meant it was mandatory for smoke alarms to be fitted on all floors of rented properties.
Prosecutor Allan Compton said Bains effectively ‘sealed the fate of those children’ and denied their mother a chance to rescue them.
He told a court the lack of smoke alarms eliminated the ‘golden window’ of opportunity to reach the boys before the fire became untenable.
In an emotional victim impact statement from the boy’s mother Emma, she told of her torment and how she relives the tragic day ‘over and over’.
It read: ‘I have been left heartbroken. I relive the day of the fire over and over. I relive the moment I could not get to them.
‘I don’t think I will ever recover from this awful tragedy. The worst thing is I won’t get to see my boys grow up
‘Since the fire, my life has been turned upside down. I have nightmares and wake up in the middle of the night to my boys crying, but they are not there.
‘I have been left heartbroken. I relive the day of the fire over and over. I relive the moment I could not get to them.
Logan Taylor, three, and his baby brother Jake Casey, two, died during a fatal blaze on February 20, 2016, despite desperate attempts to save them
‘As a result of the fire, I have moved out of the area. All my memories of the boys are in that house.
‘My son Finley is not the same child, he is angry and blames himself. My mental health has suffered, I cry all the time over nothing.
‘I don’t think I will ever recover from this awful tragedy. The worst thing is I won’t get to see my boys grow up.’
Dad Jamie Casey described Finley’s brothers as his ‘best friends’ and said: ‘How do you explain to an eight-year-old that they’re not coming home?’
Bains, of Huddersfield, had faced two manslaughter charges and West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service said they believed it would be the first prosecution of this nature in the country.
However, mid-way through the trial, he pleaded guilty to an alternative charge of failing to discharge the employer’s general duty owed under Section 3 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.
During the trial, jurors were told on the day of the fatal fire – described to a jury as an ’eminently avoidable’ tragedy – Logan and Jake (pictured) were put down for a nap in their cots at 2pm
Logan (pictured), who had autism, needed background noise to fall asleep – prompting his mother to switch on the television, which had an electrical fault
Prosecuting, Mr Compton said: ‘He allowed them to live in a premises conscious that there was a risk of death.
‘What is perhaps most striking, not a single document or check sheet were seen or found documenting any checks prior to the fire.
‘We say his failure is capable of amounting to a flagrant disregard for the law.
‘It’s a very serious aggravating feature that the consequence of the breach of duty was effectively I’m afraid to seal the fate of those children.
‘They had no chance where as if those alarms were present they would have had at least a chance.
‘You can include that enough time had elapsed that the absence of smoke alarms was more than a minimal cause of the outcome.
‘There would have been more than enough time to be alerted to the beeping to get her children out.’
Defending, Mr Tyrone Smith QC said: ‘We know that for virtually all the properties he managed there is little evidence to suggest this is endemic.
Bains was today jailed after the judge concluded the harm caused by his failure not to fit the alarms at the home (pictured) ‘could not have been more serious’
‘This was not a habitual error of the defendant he didn’t make the error as in this case because he was a greedy or nasty landlord, that’s why we categorise this as an oversight.
‘What we can be sure of is the parents have been deprived of the certainty as to what benefit smoke alarms could have provided.
‘The simple point is, these parents will never know the exact chain of events and whether smoking alarms would have assisted.’
A court previously heard that Miss Taylor and partner Jamie Casey moved into the property in Huddersfield, West Yorks., in April 2015 with their children Finley, Logan, and Jake.
During the trial, jurors were told on the day of the fatal fire – described to a jury as an ’eminently avoidable’ tragedy – Logan and Jake were put down for a nap in their cots at 2pm.
Bains, the sole director of the now defunct Prime Property Estates Yorkshire Ltd, maintained more than 150 homes in the Huddersfield area
Logan, who had autism, needed background noise to fall asleep – prompting his mother to switch on the television.
Her eldest son Finley, now eight, later asked her about a ‘funny smell’ before the power suddenly tripped.
Along with neighbours, she desperately tried to reach her sons’ bedroom but they were beaten back by thick smoke and heat from the flames.
Firefighters retrieved the boys’ bodies after they had succumbed to smoke inhalation from the blaze which was sparked by an electrical fault in the TV.
An investigation found that an upstairs alarm would have given Miss Taylor, downstairs with older son Finley at the time, a five-minute window to save them.
During the trial, which started earlier this month, heard previously that Miss Taylor had begged Bains to fit smoke alarms but kept being fobbed off.
They were first made on the day they moved in at the end of April 2015 because of a fire in a previous property caused by their eldest son, Finley leaving a tea towel on a gas ring.
Bains, the sole director of the now defunct Prime Property Estates Yorkshire Ltd, maintained more than 150 homes in the Huddersfield area on behalf of private landlords, pocketing 10 percent of the rent.
In police interviews, he said he had personally fitted alarms in the house and claimed Miss Taylor was lying when she said there were none.
He also accused tenants in other properties he managed of removing alarms.
In police interviews, Bains said he had personally fitted alarms in the house (shown) and claimed Miss Taylor was lying when she said there were none
Mr Compton said previous tenants at the property had also complained about a lack of alarms and one was told she needed to fit one herself.
Sentencing Bains, Mr Justice Stephen Males said: ‘You have pleaded guilty to an offence under the Health and Safety at Work act 1974.
‘This followed a fire in a rented house which you were responsible for managing on behalf of the landlord.
‘Two young children died in that fire. Your offence consists of a negligent failure to ensure that smoke alarms were fitted in the house.’
The judge said no smoke alarms were present in the house, upstairs or downstairs, from at least a year before the fatal fire.
He added that nothing he could say within sentencing ‘can begin to compensate the parents of Logan and Jake for the terrible tragedy which they have suffered’.
Bains sat motionless in a black suit and white shirt as the sentence was passed.