Prosecutors launched an appeal yesterday against a High Court judge's decision to dismiss criminal charges against the owners of a care home where 14 elderly residents died in a fire.
Thomas Balmer and his wife, Anne, both 59, and their son Alan, 33, had been due to stand trial over alleged safety breaches at Rosepark Care Home in Uddingston in January 2004.
However, at a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow on Wednesday, Lord Hardie dismissed the charges against the three over a legal technicality.
The court heard that Mr and Mrs Balmer and their son could not be held criminally liable on the 12 charges because they had dissolved the firm which owned Rosepark Nursing Home in Uddingston and set up a limited company. This was 13 months after the fire but before the indictment was served.
Fourteen residents died and several others were injured when a fire broke out in a downstairs cupboard at the care home on January 31, 2004.
Mr and Mrs Balmer and their son were accused, as partners of the firm running the home, of a total of 12 charges.
These included breaches of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989.
However, Lord Hardie dismissed the charges because of the way they had been framed on the indictment by the Crown Office.
He said the charges related to the employer and, although the Balmers were partners in the firm operating the home, they were not employers.
The Crown also accepted that as the Balmers' partnership was dissolved in February 2005, the charges listed by prosecutors against the family as employers were not relevant.
However, Lord Hardie said the Balmers could still be charged in connection with the 14 deaths.
He said: "The dissolution of the firm is fatal to any charge against it but it does not necessarily end the prospect of proceedings.
"Moreover, if prosecution has been rendered impossible by the actions of others in the course of a criminal investigation, such actions may give rise to a charge of perverting or attempting to pervert the course of justice.
"I wish to emphasise this decision does not signal an end of proceedings against the accused."
He also granted the Crown the right to appeal against his decision to dismiss the charges.
A Crown Office spokeswoman confirmed yesterday an appeal was under way.
She said: "The Lord Advocate has today Friday lodged an appeal against the decision of Lord Hardie to dismiss the charges against Thomas William Balmer, Anne Balmer and Alan Thomas Balmer. A date for the appeal will be fixed in due course."
In Thursday's edition of The Herald it was reported that the Balmer family was represented by Levy & McRae solicitors. In fact, only Thomas Balmer was represented by that firm; Mrs Balmer was represented by HBM Sayers and Alan Balmer by the Anderson Partnership.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article