The Star: February 01, 2024

The Star Thursday February 1 2024
10
NEWS
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Forged fire safety certificates fooled
council; culprit gets home detention
• By Phil Pennington
BUILDING CONTROL officers
have caught a private company’s
compliance manager forging fire
safety certificates, including for
a school.
The city council was initially
duped by the doctored documents.
A 51-year-old man has been
sentenced to nine months home
detention on four charges of using
the forged documents.
He was not registered to approve
the likes of safe evacuation
routes so forged the signature of
someone who was.
The annual certificates are
used to get warrants of fitness
that attest to a building’s safety.
The retired building consultant
whose identity was misused,
John McGowan, said the forgeries
covered very important safety
systems.
“Mercifully, this case is the
first I’ve heard of,” McGowan
said.
The man’s employer, Evolve
Fire Protection, said it did not
know about what he was up to,
that it was “bad”, but the forged
compliances were for “little
things . . . there’s no harm to the
New Zealand public”.
However, the police told RNZ
“there was a clear public interest
in bringing a prosecution case, as
the offending directly impacted
the safety of members of the
public”.
According to police, the
judge said at sentencing that the
“shortcuts” the man took had put
vulnerable people at risk.
The council said “it was our
vigilant officer who demonstrated
exceptional attention to
detail” who uncovered the forgeries,
sparking an investigation
and the conviction.
“While we strive for perfection,
instances of fraudulent
documentation can occur
despite our best efforts,” head
of building consenting Steffan
FORGERIES: An employee at Evolve Fire Protection has
been sentenced to nine months home detention on four
charges of using forged fire safety certificates.
Thomas said in a statement on
Tuesday.
“In response to these events,
we took decisive action”, including
ensuring Evolve tightened
up.
All seven buildings had since
been checked and okayed,
Thomas said. He did not identify
the school.
McGowan said the council
and police did an “outstanding”
job to nip a threat to the integrity
of the building WOF system in
the bud.
“This just reinforces the fact
that this is not just more red
tape. This is actually something
that can save lives.”
However, building control
staff were under “enormous”
pressure, added McGowan, who
spent years in the industry.
An official assessment of the
city council in 2022 said it had
too few staff vetting building
WOFs and should review the
resources – though Thomas
maintained that the council “has
not received any external reviews
or assessments indicating a lack
of skilled personnel in BWOF
compliance”.
Subsequently the council said
it had employed more BWOF
staff after the ministry review.
The previous government
was moving to bring in stiffer
penalties for trying to game the
building warrant of fitness system,
though those have not been
enacted yet, and fire regulations
remain under review following
the fatal Loafers Lodge fire in
central Wellington.
McGowan had recently retired
as a building services consultant
at multinational SGS, when the
city council came to him in mid-
2022, asking about a certificate
that had his name on it and his
registration number as a ‘independent
qualified person’ to do
fire checks (an IQP) throughout
the South Island.
It was “badly drafted” and
“highly suspicious”.
“When I saw the document, I
could confirm that it was plainly
a forgery,” McGowan said.
“Someone had clearly misappropriated
my identity and SGS
logo, and the question was,
who?”
The council investigation
exposed a half dozen or so
similar rip-off certificates, which
were boiled down to four representative
charges. The forger
was initially charged with seven
instances between mid-2020 and
mid-2022.
“Bloody embarrassing, and
it’s something you try so hard
not to happen then it does,” said
Dennis Taylor, general manager
at Evolve, which the city council
named as the firm involved.
“If someone signs a thing, how
do you as a company know that
it was (right)?”
The firm had since tightened
up - managers “get asked why,
who and how”.
The convicted man still
worked for them but was not
allowed to sign off anything, he
said.
The country’s building WOF
system is the main line of defence
against buildings falling
into unsafe disrepair.
A building owner must get
monthly checks done of vital systems
including fire alarms - who
does these checks is only loosely
regulated, while only an IQP
with the right registrations is allowed
sign off on annual checks.
“As IQPs, we have a weighty
responsibility to be scrupulously
honest in all our professional actions,”
McGowan said.
The WOF system introduced
in 2004 was gradually getting
better and building owners taking
it more seriously, he said.
The 2022 assessment at
Christchurch by the Ministry
of Business, Innovation and
Employment made the “strong
recommendation” that the
council review its resourcing,
because it had only four BWOF
staff, each looking after 1339
buildings.
The ministry says a pending
law change will mean any IQP
who negligently certifies a
specified system can be fined up
to $50,000, or body corporates
up to $150,000.
The council said ensuring
the safety and compliance of
buildings was “paramount”.
It had a rigourous verification
process that cross-referenced
all documents against the IQP
register to ensure that the right
people were doing sign-offs.
MBIE said it was working with
councils on a more nationally
consistent approach to IQPs,
and on changes to fire safety
provisions in the Building Code.
– RNZ
REVIEW: A 2022 assessment of Christchurch City Council
said it had too few staff vetting Building Warrant of Fitness
checks.
PHOTO: RNZ / NATE MCKINNON
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