Charges against Lanarkshire nursing home owners dropped

The Balmers, who ran Rosepark Care Home in Uddingston where 14 residents died in a fire, have walked free after charges against them were dismissed.

The family who ran a Lanarkshire nursing home where 14 residents died in a fire have walked free after charges against them were dismissed.

On Tuesday, a judge threw out the case against Thomas Balmer, 61, his wife Anne, 60, and son Alan, 34, after legal arguments at the High Court in Glasgow. The decision came following a fresh attempt to prosecute the trio after a previous case against them collapsed in 2007.

Lord Matthews dismissed the 17 charges against the Balmers, who are the surviving partners of the now dissolved firm of Rosepark Care Home in Uddingston, South Lanarkshire.

Lord Matthews said it was in the public interest for the Crown to attempt to prosecute if they can, but the law does not allow them to do so in the form chosen in this case.

He said: “It may be that this is a matter which might usefully be considered by the Scottish Law Commission or the Scottish Parliament.”

The Balmers, of Bothwell, made no comment as they left court. Victims’ relatives stormed off after the decision. One man shouted that it was “a disgrace” and a “legal loophole”.

The Balmers could have each faced up to two years in jail had they been convicted of the health and safety breaches. The charges they faced ran from between April 1, 1996 to the day of the fire on January 31, 2004.

It include allegations that there was a failure to maintain an “adequate or effective system or strategy for fire safety” at Rosepark. It was claimed that fire exits on one occasion in 2000 were obstructed by mattresses, an organ, a hoist and a wheelchair.

Thomas Balmer’s QC Mike Jones claimed during a hearing last month that the charges were “oppressive, incompetent or irrelevant”.

In February 2007, charges against the Balmers were thrown out on a legal technicality. A second attempt to indict the trio was then dismissed last July after a ruling that a case against Rosepark Care Home – the name of the family-run company at the time of the incident – could not proceed because the firm had since been dissolved.

Lord Matthews has granted the Crown the right to appeal this latest decision.