Cameron House: hotel did not carry out fire drills at night

Practice fire drills were not carried out at night at a hotel where two men died in a blaze, an inquiry has been told.

Andy Roger, 43, was resort director at the Cameron House hotel, near Balloch, on the shores of Loch Lomond, at the time of the fire in December 2017.

Simon Midgley, 32, and his partner, Richard Dyson, 38, from London, both died in the fire.

The blaze began when night porter Christopher O’Malley emptied ash and embers from a fuel fire into a plastic bag, and then put it in a cupboard full of kindling and newspapers.

The inquiry was told there was no written procedure at the hotel on how to empty the open fires after they had been used.

Mark Stewart QC, acting for O’Malley, said there appeared to be a “management failing” at the hotel with staff left “to their own devices” to clean fireplaces.

Roger denied he knew night porters were using an “ad hoc” selection of equipment to recover ashes from fires and said he would have put a proper procedure in place if he had known about concerns raised in 2016.

Roger told the inquiry that the hotel did not do fire drills at night, and when asked what time they were held, said: “We generally took them around 10.30 to 11 in the morning or three or four in the afternoon. Between 10 and four, generally, the hours of the drills.”

He added: “[In] hindsight, that’s something we have done differently, we have done silent drills since we re-opened to capture that.”

As part of the hotel’s evacuation plan, workers were instructed to pick up a bag which included equipment to help with the roll-call of guests. However, on the night of the blaze, as the intensity of the fire in reception grew, it was left behind.

Roger told the court he could not recall if there was any duplicate equipment available, but said many of the hotel’s systems were cloud-based and could be accessed from a laptop.

On the day of the fire, Roger told the court, he arrived at the hotel by about 7.15am and spoke to emergency services.

When he got there, guests were at the boathouse and had started a manual roll-call as they waited for the list, the inquiry was told.

Roger said at the boathouse there were “people coming in and out” and staff were calling between the two main rooms.

He said it was discovered the guests in room eight, Dyson and Midgley, were unaccounted for some time after 8am.

The inquiry was also told about the hotel’s fire plan which, under its general section, stated: “Combustible material of any kind must not be stored in general electrical or boiler rooms.”

Inquiry concluded

Hotel operator Cameron House Resort (Loch Lomond) Ltd was previously fined £500,000, with night porter Christopher O’Malley given a community payback order over the fire.

The hotel firm admitted failing to take the necessary fire safety measures to ensure the safety of its guests and employees between January 14 2016 and December 18 2017.

The company admitted two charges of breaching the Fire (Scotland) Act 2005.

O’Malley admitted breaching sections of health and safety laws which relate to the obligation on an employee to take reasonable care for the health and safety of people affected by their acts or omissions at work.

Since the hotel re-opened in September 2021, the inquiry was told, there have been revised fire safety procedures and new fire safety measures including sprinklers and updated alarms.

The inquiry concluded on Monday (29 August) and heard from an architect who said fire suppression or sprinkler systems should be made mandatory in historic buildings converted to hotels.

The findings will be used to determine whether any lessons can be learned to minimise the risk of future deaths, but it is not a criminal trial.

The sheriff's determination will be published in due course.