Former gas engineer faked safety record on own property

A former gas engineer who was also a landlord has been given a suspended prison sentence after he failed to ensure that gas safety checks were undertaken at his tenanted property.

Newton Abbot Magistrates’ Court heard that Mehmet Sevim, from Torquay, a former registered engineer, was a residential landlord. He said he had employed an unnamed, non-registered person to carry out a landlord’s gas safety check at one of his properties.

The HSE’s investigation found that Mr Sevim maintained throughout that he had used someone he could not name to undertake the landlord’s gas safety record check. Mr Sevim did not make any checks on this individual, and didn’t check whether they were Gas Safe registered.

The landlord’s gas safety record contained false Gas Safe Register engineer details, and Mr Sevim told the court that he had produced the fraudulent certificate. Mr Sevim had also tried to bribe a prosecution witness before the trial by offering them £300 to change their evidence.

Mehmet Sevim, of Ellacombe Church Road, Torquay, was found guilty of breaching Regulations 36(4) of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998. He was sentenced to 26 weeks in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to undertake 240 hours of unpaid work. Mr Sevim was also ordered to pay costs of £5,330.76.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Simon Jones said: “Mr Sevim lied throughout this investigation and, only at sentencing, did he finally tell the truth about how he falsified a landlord’s gas safety certificate.

“There can be no excuse for a landlord to ever falsify a gas safety certificate and this sentence should send a clear warning to all landlords’ that the courts take such matters very seriously.”