HAMMERSMITH and Fulham Council has been accused of 'playing Russian roulette' with the lives of its tenants after it failed to conduct home gas safety checks - years after two people died from poisoning because of a similar offence.

The authority admitted it broke the law in nearly 300 of its properties over a two year period by failing to arrange annual checks on gas appliances like boilers and heaters. It was fined £83,600 at Westminster Magistrates' Court following an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive.

The case bares a chilling resemblance to another hearing in 2001 when the authority was given a then record fine of £350,000 following the deaths from poisoning of Noel Porter Blake and Anne-Marie Ahmet in a flat in Sharnbrook House on the West Kensington Estate. The pair were overcome by carbon monoxide fumes which had leaked from a boiler which the Health and Safety Executive discovered hadn't been properly maintained.

That came only five years after another two people had died in identical circumstances. The sentencing judge at the 2001 case slammed the council, then a Labour administration, for its 'lamentable history of failure to accept its responsibility', while the HSE said the deaths were 'avoidable'.

Eleven years on from that hearing the council found itself in the dock again. Labour opposition leader councillor Stephen Cowan said: "If it had gone to Crown Court, as they feared, it could have been a lot bigger. It's incredible these failure are still going on. They are playing Russian roulette with people's lives."

The HSE was alerted to the latest failures by a tenant at a hostel run by the authority in Lambeth, which it has since sold, who complained there were expired safety certificates on the property's gas appliances.

Over a period between April 2008-July 2010, the HSE investigated a further 19 properties of the 297 cited by the council, including in Stanlake Road and Australia Road in Shepherd's Bush and in Grey House on the White City Estate, and all had invalid certificates.

The authority was prosecuted for nine separate breaches, with a further 14 breaches taken into consideration in agreement with the defendant. It admitted all nine offences, was fined and had to pay full costs of £15,553.

A spokesman for the council said: "We pleaded guilty to a series of serious administrative failures concerning the timely completion of gas safety certificates and would like to apologise unreservedly to our tenants in the private sector leased properties concerned.

"As a responsible landlord, there is nothing more important to the council than the safety of our tenants and, as soon as we discovered these failings, we acted decisively to rectify these unacceptable breaches. All of the officers directly associated with these failings no longer work for the council and we have completely overhauled our procedures in this area so that every one of these properties now has a valid gas safety certificate."