A Cameron House night manager was left “horrified” after watching a porter use a plastic bag to clear out a fireplace – days before the practice caused a fatal blaze which killed two guests.
Ann Rundell today told an inquiry she challenged the staff member, asking ‘what the f*** do you think you’re doing?’
The 61-year-old was giving evidence in the second week of a Fatal Accident Inquiry at Paisley Sheriff Court into the deaths of Richard Dyson, 38, and his partner Simon Midgley, 32, who died following the fire at the five-star Loch Lomond hotel in December 2017.
It started after Renton night porter Christopher O’Malley emptied ash and embers from a log fire into a polythene bag, and then put it in a cupboard of kindling and newspapers.
Ms Rundell, who started working at the hotel in 1993 before leaving and returning in 1996, told how she was on shift in the early hours of Friday morning – three days before the blaze – when she spotted the night porter with a plastic bag filled with water.
It was her last shift before the fire on December 18, 2017.
She said O’Malley was “within earshot” when she spoke to the other porter about it at around 1.30am.
“I was standing at reception doing computer work and I saw [him] with a bin bag. It was just a clear bag with water in it,” she told the inquiry.
“I just remember walking up to him and saying ‘what the f*** do you think you’re doing?’
“He was going to put the hot ash into the bag.”
Crown counsel Graeme Jessop asked what his reply was, to which she said: “He said well I can’t find a metal bucket. I said ‘well get a chafing dish from the kitchen, what you usually do.
“I remember him saying to me ‘okay boss, sorry boss’.”
When asked how it made her feel, she replied: “I was horrified.”
The court was shown CCTV footage of the moment the exchange happened.
The porter was seen holding the plastic bag, with Ms Rundell telling the court it appeared to have ash in it.
She told how an incident had happened around 10 years earlier, where a porter had put hot ash into a cardboard box, which set a compactor on fire.
The inquiry has previously heard that ash bins at the back of the hotel were full at the time of the blaze.
Mr Jessop asked: “In the event that the ash bins were full what would you expect the night porters to do?”
She replied: “I would expect the night porter to leave the chafing dish beside the metal bin outside as I wouldn’t want the smoke or anything inside the hotel.
“It’s just common sense to take hot ash outside.”
She said training on the clearing out of fireplaces was done “peer to peer”, with instruction given by an “experienced” night porter.
When asked about how she would respond to a fire in the hotel, Ms Rundell became emotional when talking about the in-house guest list, saying she would always carry a copy with her.
She said: “There was one kept behind the door at reception. I had a clip board and I kept the list with me. I used it all the time. Every shift I was on. I had two copies.”
She said in the event of an evacuation, she would hand it to “whoever comes to me first”, saying: “I would hand it over to a public area cleaner and say go and do the roll call. They would go outside and do it straight away on my instruction.”
When asked to clarify who she would hand the list to, she said: “Whoever comes to me first. If a member of the breakfast team comes to assist I’d hand that out as quickly as you can.”
Ms Rundell was asked whether she received any training for fire evacuations, replying: “Not on nights. There wasn’t a practical fire evacuation at night.”
Hotel operator Cameron House Resort (Loch Lomond) Ltd was previously fined £500,000, and night porter Christopher O’Malley was given a community payback order over the fire.
Dumbarton Sheriff Court heard in January last year that the fire started after O’Malley emptied ash and embers from a fuel fire into a polythene bag, and then put it in a cupboard of kindling and newspapers.
The hotel company 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 inquiry at Paisley Sheriff Court before Sheriff Thomas McCartney, continues.
