Alarm company told to 
pay £30m for pier blaze

An alarm company has been ordered to pay £30m in damages to the owners of a historic pier that was destroyed by a fire.

The blaze ripped through the Grade II listed Grand Pier in Weston-super-Mare in July 2008 causing millions of pounds of damage.

The fire gutted the pier and forced co-owners Kerry and Michelle Michael into a £51m redevelopment of the site.

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The Michaels took legal action against Weston-based System 2 Security and its sub-contractor Yeoman Monitoring Services, saying the two firms failed to respond when alarms first sounded at 1.35am on the day of the fire.

No 999 calls were made until nearly 7am, by which time the fire had claimed most of the pier.

The claim against Essex-based Yeoman Monitoring Services was settled privately, with no admission of liability, earlier this year.

Following a hearing at Bristol Mercantile Court, Judge Mark Havelock-Allan found a “high degree of negligence” against System 2 Security.

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The judge found “no contributory negligence” on behalf of the Grand Pier Ltd and awarded the company an immediate payment of £30m plus interest.

However, System 2 Security went into administration three days before the court case began in November.

Mr Michael said he was pleased with the complete vindication of Grand Pier Ltd, its directors and staff but that he was determined to go on pursuing the individuals he holds responsible.

“There can be no doubt where the blame lies,” he said.

“It has cost us hundreds of thousands of pounds to pursue this judgment and we did so knowing that System 2 Security Ltd was just a shell of a company with little or no assets so we had little chance of seeing any compensation from them.

“However, we felt we had a duty to get to the truth behind the fire and identify those responsible for the loss of the Grand Pier.”

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