Cot tragedy
and the Regulations
A designer and retailer of children’s beds has recently been jailed for 3 years and 4 months
following the death of a seven-month-old baby, who got stuck between the gaps in the front
of his cot. Tariva Thomas, pictured below, Associate Solicitor at Wright Hassall LLP, examines
something, produced by committees of
experts and testing bodies in the field
to guide designers and manufacturers
as to what is deemed best practice.
Consumers often have to make
enquiries to ascertain what safety
standards a particular product has
to adhere to, in order to be sold in
the market and, as the above case
suggests, they may not be able to trust
all the information they are given by the
designer, retailer or manufacturer.
WHAT THE LAW SAYS
All cots currently sold in the UK should
conform to the European Safety
Standard BS EN 716-1:2017 and the
General Product Safety Regulations
2005 require cots and bunk beds to be
safe, with a presumption that they will
meet certain safety standards.
There are also specific regulations
for bunk beds, seeking to prevent
injury, strangulation or suffocation.
The British/European Standards BS
EN 747-1: 2012 and BS EN 747-2:
2012 were introduced in 2015 for
bunk beds and high beds dealing with
entrapment and ventilation of the
bed base. In particular, they specify
various compulsory safety requirements
that a bunk bed must have, such as
protective barriers, guard rails, ladders,
strength of materials, durability and
instructions for use.
In 2010, the European Union issued
Commission Decision 2010/376/EU,
calling for further development of the
What was particularly
harrowing about this
case was that the court
found the designer
and retailer involved had a “flagrant
disregard” for the safety regulations
and had fraudulently continued to
sell the beds, even after the reported
death. No modifications were made to
the designs of the beds following the
incident and the court heard that the
company continued to sell the exact
same beds under a new company
name. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
uk-england-45991236 )
PRACTICAL CONCERNS
This recent case is a truly devastating
example of how parents
can be misled into
believing that the
product they are
purchasing is safe
and suitable for their
children. In this day
and age, with all the
regulations, consumer
rights and health
and safety
legislation
that
the background to this tragic incident
surrounds us and protects us, it is not
unreasonable to assume that a product
purchased in the UK is one that meets
the requisite safety standards. Sadly,
consumers need to be far more
vigilant. In this case, the parents
were assured that the bed was
suitable for children from the
age of six months and were
completely unaware of the risk
that the product posed to their child.
The difficulty for consumers is
that, whilst there are a number of
safety standards that products should
adhere to, the standards are simply
an identified and agreed way of doing
26 www.ied.org.uk
/
/www.ied.org.uk