26th
Feb 2021
PIMS comment: As a general rule it is very rare that the news stories ‘names and shames’ rogue landlords, however in this case because of the shocking and appalling behaviour of the two reprobates who caused the death of a tenant.
Both a landlord and shopkeeper have been found guilty of manslaughter after being found responsible for the death of a tenant through gross negligence and have been subsequently jailed.
Mushtaq Ahmed of Oldham (the landlord) was sentenced to nine years and Shafaq Khan of Rochdale (the shopkeeper) received an eight-year sentence.
The guilty landlord’s property is in Greater Manchester which he converted from a pub into a shop with flats above it.
In spite of being advised by Rochdale council against letting out five flats he went ahead with his plan at the end of 2016; the tragic tenant Joao Afonso was one of the renters who lived in the flats.
The Diamond Mini Market shop below the flats was owned by Khan.
Afonso died in his flat from carbon monoxide poisoning in September 2017 due to the petrol generator which both the landlord and shopkeeper had installed in a storeroom directly beneath his flat illegally and proved fatal.
The court was told that the flats also had a hazardous illegal electricity supply which was connected directly to the mains connection by the guilty parties.
In 2017 it was found that the landlord was siphoning off the electricity for free but still charging the tenants for the energy when an electrician acting on the company’s suspicions, inspected the properties.
Upon discovering the illegal and dangerous activity the electrician immediately disconnected the premises’ energy supply. The connections and set up were extremely hazardous because of scorched wires and exposed live areas that could have caused fires and electrocution.
The shopkeeper Khan was told by the electrician the actions he must take for the electricity supply to be reconnected. Regardless of this he decided to install a petrol generator which of course was at a fraction of the cost for a safe legitimate solution and far quicker for the shop.
Upon contacting a local hire shop for a petrol generator Khan said he needed to hire one to power his lights and fridges in his shop.
He was warned by the hire shop that the generator should only be used to power the lights.
Needless to say the shopkeeper took no notice and went ahead without any concern for any of one his tenants.
The landlord set up a double-ended plug from the generator allowing the electricity to be back-fed into the buildings supply, this was extremely dangerous as the plug and all of the terminals throughout the building became live. This made the building even more life threatening when coupled with the dangerous hazards that the electrician had previously reported.
The court heard that when a customer told the pair of the hazards of a petrol generator indoors they immediately moved it into the storeroom which had no ventilation directly below Afonso’s flat; and to further compound their dangerous actions the generator was behind a fire door preventing it being opened from upstairs.
The shopkeeper’s defence spuriously claimed that Khan did not have the basic IT skills or knowledge to research the hazards of using the generator on the internet.
Photos from his social media profile proved this to the contrary.
The Home Office’s post mortem on Joao Afonso’s reported he had died from carbon monoxide poisoning from the petrol generator’s exhaust fumes. The ventilation in the storeroom was virtually non-existent so the fumes seeped through the ceiling into Afonso’s flat proving to be fatal for the tragic tenant.
Within days of the fatality the landlord and shopkeeper spent £5,000 so that the electricity supply reconnection in the building became legitimate - in an attempt to cover up their guilt for causing Afonso’s death.
Their willful actions did not stop there because in 2018 an electrical supply company visited the premises and discovered further dangerous activity on the electricity meter; worst still it found that once again a petrol generator had been installed in the same storeroom directly below Afonso’s flat.
Detective Constable Dan Daly of Greater Manchester Police says: “The fact that Ahmed and Khan paid for the electricity supply to be legitimately reconnected to the building days after Joao's death, demonstrates their greed and desire to find the cheapest solution rather than the safety of their tenants, employees and general public.
“Had they have paid this debt instead of getting a generator, Joao Afonso's death would have been prevented.
"Neither Ahmed or Khan considered any alternative options before the installation of the petrol generator. If they had, Joao would still be alive. Instead, their first priority was making sure the shop remained open, fridges remained on and stock not destroyed. There were a number of steps throughout this tragic affair which if the defendants had not acted through greed and gross negligence could have prevented Joao Afonso's death.”
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