Estate maintenance

Mrs Pullen lived on Islington council's Market Estate. In July 2000, the council contracted out maintenance and repair of the estate to Hyde Housing Association. On 26 July 2000 officers from the council and Hyde carried out a floor-by-floor inspection of all three blocks of flats on the estate to identify and commission necessary repairs.

In September 2000, Mrs Pullen's 12-year-old son was killed when a heavy steel-framed security door, which had been propped up against a wall in the communal area on the second floor of one of the blocks, fell on him and fractured his skull. It was not known when, or by whom, the door had been taken off its hinges. A housing officer had raised a "priority category one" repair for a door noted as off its hinges on 19 June 2000 but it was not clear whether it was the same door. The deputy coroner, in recording a verdict of accidental death, noted "as a matter of concern" that the door seemed not to have been noticed on the 26 July inspection.

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) carried out an investigation into the accident. In early 2003it decided that neither the council nor Hyde would be prosecuted. Mrs Pullen asked the court to overturn that decision.

The judge dismissed her claim. The act of vandalism that had created the danger was not the fault of either the council or Hyde. The crucial question was whether there had been in place at the time a system for identifying and remedying risks that was as "effective as reasonably practicable". The judge said the HSE was entitled to find that there had been a reasonable system in place and that there was insufficient evidence to justify a prosecution.