How do we round up the cowboys?
Cowboys may provide good entertainment when nothing else is on the television on shows such as ‘House of Horrors’. But they threaten not only the lives of their unsuspecting customers, but also the framework of the profession by diluting trust in certification and the work done by legitimate tradesmen. This week, Lee Naughton faces jail in Wolverhampton after admitting 13 offences relating to his work as an electrician. The worst part is, he was jailed for the same offences 5 years ago...
The list of Naughton’s offences is depressing and include fraud, recklessly making false documents (including false completion certificates) and applying a false trade description. In total he was charged with 25 offences, but denied 12 of them.
What strikes me as galling is the fact that he was able to go about his work until recently, having been imprisoned for dangerous work in 2003. We are not talking about someone simply ripping people off (though of course he did that as well) but a man recklessly endangering the lives of the public.
An example of his work from a report of his trial in 2003 includes his connecting a new fuse box to a 40 year old piece of rubber insulated wire which he hid in a cavity wall. Naughton also falsely claimed to be a member of NICEIC.
It would be impossible to stop rogue traders from setting up business in the first place. But surely there should be a mechanism in place for ensuring they do not continue their dangerous work after they have been convicted? From the information I have on this case, it would appear Naughton was sent to jail for 12 months in 2003 and spent the next 4 years plying his trade in the same town, under the same name.
Hindsight is always 20/20 but this seems incredibly slack on the part of Trading Standards to have let a known dangerous fraud operate for so long. People like Naughton undermine the hard work carried out by legitimate electricians in gaining their certificates and spread confusion among the public about what constitutes a genuinely qualified tradesman.
Most people do trust a tradesman’s credentials and very few would go to the trouble of checking them. While it is good that that level of trust is there, it is imperative that the disreputable or frauds are weeded out and kept out of the industry so that trust is never diminished. In 2003, Justice Hodson stated that he hoped the sentence imposed on Naughton would serve as punishment and act as a deterrent to others. That clearly hasn’t happened, so maybe we need further measures in place to ensure the upkeep of our industry.
Enjoy the newsletter,
Richard Scott
Editor
Your Comments
Richard,
Connecting new appliances, consumer units, sockets and switch plates to aged and potentially lethal rubber wiring is not unusual. I have seen many cases locally. I even found on purchasing my own house that two MK Sentry consumer units had been fitted to existing (albeit in superb visual condition) rubber clad wiring (all the original Pirelli markings clearly visible. The connections to the consumer units were in PVC cable, but further out in the circuit PVC had been connected to rubber - now replaced of course).
Even worse, I'm nervous about the risk that loft insulation poses. I recently had a reputable nationwide company re-lag my loft. The fitters and the company itself were at a loss when I asked for a part P certificate because the wiring installation method had been effectively altered. I phoned the local council Building Inspectors, and found that their electrical "specialist" was at a loss as to what should be the correct action to take when lighting wiring is buried under 10" of insulation, though he did send me a leaflet indicating that I should contact Building Services (ie him) in the event that anything fundamentally changed the wiring status (16th edition regs say that for 400mm penetration of thermal insulation current handling is reduced to .55 of nominal cable rating, so what effect will 10m plus of "burial" mean?). My initial reaction has been to make sure all the upstairs bulbs are energy savers, reducing the current demand by up to 75%.
I fear that in the interests of saving energy/carbon dioxide pollution, we may have a national loft fire epedemic looming.
Alan Greenwood
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