Illegal fireworks haul was like ‘WW2 bomb’, says rescue chief

In 2019, Mr Yaseen Ashraf, of The Burnside, West Denton, appeared in court after admitting several offences under the Explosives Regulations (2014).

This included storing large quantities of fireworks without a licence in an area between a family home and a business in Newcastle.

Mr Ashraf appeared at Newcastle Crown Court on November 15, 2019 and was sentenced to an eight-month jail sentence suspended for 18 months for three offences.

He was also ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work and pay legal costs of £850, although there was no separate penalty for a fourth offence.

Following the court ruling, Tyne and Wear’s Fire and Rescue Authority was responsible for transporting, storing and safely destroying the fireworks.

Although a court application was made for Ashraf to cover the costs of disposal, this was turned down – leaving fire chiefs with a bill of £3,442.25.

Chief Fire Officer (CFO) for Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service, Chris Lowther, has since hit back at the decision.

“In the case of Mr Ashraf, there was an appeal to the magistrates in order that we would receive the compensation for destroying the 376kg of fireworks which were seized,” he said.

“That amount of fireworks is equivalent to a World War Two bomb being in a domestic property.

“Unfortunately the courts did not give us that compensation so the authority has had to foot the bill to destroy those fireworks.”

The fire chief was speaking at meeting of Fire and Rescue Authority, which was held remotely and broadcast live on YouTube.

The comments came during an update on recent prosecutions by the fire service.

As previously reported, Ashraf admitted to four health and safety breaches at the Newcastle premises.

This included two offences of storing explosives without a licence, failing to maintain the required separation distance between the store and other buildings and failing to take measures to limit the extent of fire or explosion or its spread.

CFO Chris Lowther, commenting on recent prosecutions, said: “These are examples where we have tried to work with business owners but that’s failed and the risk is to the public, and most importantly to your firefighters.

“If you can just imagine being turned out at a domestic property with an upstairs flat absolutely full of explosive materials.

“We wouldn’t know or expect that, this is the strength of your protection and fire safety teams going out there and finding these through inspection.

“We could be looking at multiple firefighter fatalities and yet we didn’t get the court costs for disposing of those fireworks.”

Fire authority member and Gateshead councillor, Gary Haley, said the costs decision was “disappointing” and asked for it to be flagged during the legal process in future.

In response to concerns about public safety and illegal fireworks, CFO Chris Lowther added there were plans in place to pre-empt similar incidents.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened in my experience, in my organisational and personal memory there was an incident at a place called Marlie Farm where loads of fireworks were stored in an ISO container.

“Firefighters lost their lives because they were turned out to a fire and didn’t know what it was.

“The country and the fire service learned from that, but this is an example of where if our fire safety teams had not gone out and done a subsequent inspection, we wouldn’t have found these materials, and that risk is in our communities.

“We will be taking action to try and pre-empt this in future, but we’re also building it into our protection strategies moving forward.

“The National Fire Chiefs Council (NFCC) hasn’t got a united view on fireworks whether they should be totally banned or not.

“But we do recommend as a service and a NFCC, that people only attend organised displays.

“It is pleasing to know that less and less shops apply for licences, but this is an example of a premises without a licence still getting fireworks in.

“It’s not right that the fire authority had to put up this money but we had an obligation to make sure that these dangerous explosives were taken out of circulation.”

Newcastle councillor, Hazel Stephenson, also told the meeting: “With all the campaigns we do with fireworks, such as the darker night campaigns, we know residents are saying [fireworks] are getting louder.

“But the actual quantity in relation to potential explosives and the lethal consequences of that being in a residential premises, it’s unbelievable that someone would do that.”

She added:“The Government need to look at where we’re going with this because clearly a catastrophe was averted there, potentially by good chance and diligence by the officers doing the safety checks.

“It could have been a dreadful situation that happened there and that’s the one we know about, the worry is the ones we don’t potentially.”

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