A Somerset engineer has been fined for unsafe gas work after leaving a boiler in an 'immediately dangerous' condition when he carried out a service.

Upon leaving the property he said he needed to order some parts, and then contacted his employer to seek approval from the energy supplier to obtain the parts, but left the boiler working.

The energy supplier was suspicious and instructed another gas engineer from a separate company to visit the home the same day to check if the parts were really needed.

The second engineer found some of the parts were not needed and that Mr Sampson had used a 20p piece to 'repair' a viewing glass in the boiler which mean it had to be classed as 'immediately dangerous'.

Mark Sampson, of Watermans Meadow, Bridgwater, was fined £1,000 ordered to pay £353 costs after pleading guilty to breaching Section 7(a) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

HSE inspector Simon Jones said: “Mark Sampson was Gas Safe registered, which makes it even more shocking that he failed to carry out this work to the correct standard thereby putting the homeowners and any visitors to the property at risk.

“Using a 20p piece in this way is totally unacceptable and meant the boiler was classed as ‘immediately dangerous’ posing a risk of fire and carbon monoxide gas leaking from the boiler.

“There were signs of heat damage inside and outside the boiler before Mark Sampson carried out this ‘repair’, so he should have been alerted to the risk of fire.”