The owner of a Coventry, UK, glazing company has been fined UK 4,000 for misleading a customer about fitting reinforced windows.
City magistrates found Dev Singh Supra, who runs Direct Windows in Hol…
The owner of a Coventry, UK, glazing company has been fined UK 4,000 for misleading a customer about fitting reinforced windows. City magistrates found Dev Singh Supra, who runs Direct Windows in Holbrooks Lane, Coventry, guilty of eight counts of making and supplying falsely described windows. His company sold and began fitting the windows, which it claimed had reinforced frames, for customer Rostram Mehrabanbour. The householder ordered the work to be stopped when he suspected he was being misled. Mehrabanbour, of Orchard Crescent, Cheyles-more, signed a contract for UK 5,350 with a Direct Windows salesman in August, 1998. Mehrabanbour said: “I told him I wanted all the new frames fully reinforced as I saw a programme which said the house might suffer structural damage if the windows were not fully reinforced. “I was present during some of the fitting of the downstairs front bay windows. I saw the windows contained metal rods. I noted the windows for the upstairs bay did not contain metal rods. “It dawned on me the other windows may not be reinforced.” A relative helped him drill small holes in a window frame to try to see if there were any reinforcing rods in place but could find none. Judith Irwin, prosecuting, said a glazing expert, Gerald Barnado, was called in to check the windows and concluded they were all poorly surveyed, manufactured and installed and were not “fully or adequately reinforced.” Supra, the sole proprietor of the company, denied eight counts under the Trades Descriptions Act. He claimed there was nothing in writing describing what reinforcement there was and that he had offered to put things right as quickly as he could. He was fined UK 500 on each of the eight charges.