A housing association has apologised for dismissing a mother's fears about a broken step as 'not an emergency' - before a child was injured on them.
Nicole Craft said she called her landlords Home Group on April 12 to ask that a faulty metal staircase at the back of her home in Teams, Gateshead, be fixed, as she was scared someone might get hurt. But staff ruled the repair wasn't urgent and set a date nearly two weeks in the future by which they said it would be completed.
But just three days later she said one of the steps broke under a five-year-old girl, causing her to fall through the staircase and leaving her scraped and bruised. Fearing serious injury, Nicole took her to A&E at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, in Gateshead.
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She was told the youngster had sustained soft tissue damage and they were sent home with painkillers. But she's now scared of the steps, and Nicole fears things could have been even worse.
She said: "I had said that if my children got out there there could be a serious accident and on the Friday she ended up falling through the step. This wouldn't have happened if they had listened.
"She fell right through, the broken step fully flipped over and she fell through up to her hips and she's got soft tissue damage all down her hips."
Following the accident, Home Group were called again and came out to the flat to rope off the stairs. They then sent contractors out on Thursday April 21 to weld all the steps firmly into place.
Nicole, 23, and her partner Dale Stuart have lived in the Gateshead flat since November with their two five-year-old children. Nicole claims the housing association has generally been slow to respond to her requests for repairs.
"The repairs and the health and safety from Home Group have been absolutely disgusting," she said.
Gary Woolridge, a maintenance and contract manager at Home Group said: “We received a call from our customer on April 12 regarding an issue with the stairs, which was classified as a slip hazard but not an emergency repair and would be rectified by April 24.
“However, we received another call on April 15 informing us our customer’s child had had an accident on the stairs. We attended immediately, made the staircase safe and are onsite [on Thursday] to repair them.
“With hindsight, and better communication from our contractor, we should have made the staircase safe on April 12, which I’ve no doubt would have avoided the accident. We are just thankful that it was not too serious and are relieved our customer’s child is ok. We are extremely sorry that this has happened.”
