Children dead from carbon monoxide poisoning
There were calls today for tour operators to do more to prevent the kind of tragedy which left two British children dead from carbon monoxide poisoning on holiday in Corfu.
Greek officials have said the manager of the hotel where the youngsters died, along with the owner, maintenance manager and an engineer who installed an air conditioning unit, will be charged over the deaths.
Lawyer Clive Garner said while it was "highly unlikely" that an English tour operator would be found criminally liable for the deaths, there may be the possibility of civil liability, depending on the individual case.
"The deaths of Christianne and Robert Shepherd and the serious injury to their father and his partner simply should not have happened," he said.
"There will be serious legal consequences for those responsible from the hotel and any others involved in the provision of the accommodation and its heating devices."
Travel Litigation
The partner at Irwin Mitchell International Travel Litigation Group said: "Tour operators do generally undertake health and safety assessments prior to sending clients out to hotels, but the regularity of these assessments and the detail they are undertaken varies very substantially.
"It's an area where controls are not as rigorous as they should be, and certainly although tour operators consider health and safety matters, I think more should be done to improve their assessments of health and safety throughout the holiday season and throughout the time they are sending their customers to these hotels overseas."
Carbon monoxide poisoning
Mr Garner, who has represented clients in cases where carbon monoxide has led to fatalities and serious injury, said poisoning by the gas was "thankfully, rare".
But he said: "It is such a serious condition that really can have devastating affects.
"Its risks are well-known in the holiday industry, well known throughout health and safety, and consequently it is one of the things that should be looked at very carefully indeed."
Earlier, Labour MP Nigel Griffiths said he had been urging tour operators to carry out local inspections for years.
Faulty gas appliance
The deputy Commons leader helped set up campaigning group CO-Gas Safety with a mother whose son was killed by a faulty gas appliance in Tenerife 15 years ago.
"For 15 years we have been urging all UK tour operators to carry out local inspections - our campaign has financed independent gas experts to travel abroad, and we've presented critical gas safety reports to the directors of all the major UK tour operators," he said.
Holidaymakers could fall victim to gas poisoning
He said he believed hundreds of holidaymakers could have fallen victim to gas poisoning and warned there may have been "extensive cover-ups" by locals to prevent disruption of the tourist trade.
In response to Nigel Griffiths' comments, the Association of Independent Tour Operators (AITO) called for Government help to ensure standards at hotels across the EU are maintained.
The association of 150 smaller travel companies, which does not include Thomas Cook who the family were traveling with, said compliance with rules varied widely across Europe.
AITO director Noel Josephides said tour operators had a responsibility to their customers for every aspect of their holiday, but had to be able to rely on hotel maintenance being carried out to EU legal standards.
"Tour operators may inspect accommodation at the start of the season and again in mid-season, but it's simply not possible or practical for a tour operator to inspect every room in every hotel week in, week out.
"Hoteliers across the EU are supposed to comply with the same standards EU-wide, but this is often not the case and standards vary hugely.
"We urge Mr Griffiths to make full use of his ministerial position and to ensure his Government forces the EU to monitor rigorously all hoteliers and other accommodation providers within the EU," he said.
"Tour operators have to be able to rely on guarantees provided by the hotel management who sign the contracts with tour operators.
"Government action on this front would thus be very helpful in terms of ensuring similar standards across all hotels in Europe for all consumers, both from the UK and elsewhere."
Mr Griffiths later demanded that every gas boiler in every resort must be checked by the tour operators.
"The resorts reps must carry out an immediate inspection of every single gas boiler in every resort as part of their routine daily checks," he said.
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