Safety locks on windows

Mrs Stevens' two-year-old son fell from a first-floor window in her council house. Having managed to open the handles of the window, which had no locks, he had fallen about 10 feet and suffered significant injuries. The window had not been in need of repair nor had it been defectively designed, but it had no locks.

Before the accident, Mrs Stevens had asked the council to fit safety locks but it had refused. It had a general policy of not fitting such locks on the grounds of fire safety.

After the accident, it fitted safety catches that prevented the windows from fully opening and could not be released by a small child. Had the catches been in place at the time, the accident would not have occurred.

Mrs Stevens sought compensation for her son's injuries, claiming the council owed him a duty of care and had been negligent in not fitting safety locks. The judge upheld her claim and the council appealed.

The Court of Appeal decided the council had not been liable.

It had not been in breach of any obligation as Mrs Stevens' landlord and had broken no health and safety rules. Its policy on safety locks had been reasonably based on previous tragedies in which occupiers had been unable to escape from fires. There was nothing exceptional about Mrs Stevens' circumstances requiring a departure from the policy.

As to safety catches, Mrs Stevens had never requested any, nor sought permission to fit any, and there was no evidence that the council had known of the existence of this particular type of catch until after the accident.