A JUDGE will decide on Monday how much a hotel firm will be fined for breaking fire safety laws.

Judge Derwin Hope adjourned the case against ESB Hotels Ltd until 3pm on Monday following a hearing at Bolton Crown Court on Friday.

ESB Hotels Ltd has admitted breaching fire regulations on the night a fire killed Blackpool pensioners William and Margaret Robertson at Bolton's Moat house Hotel.

The court was told that beds left on the third floor of the hotel and mattresses in the corridor of the first floor blocked emergency exit routes and breached fire certificate requirements.

Prosecuting, Matthew Copeland said mattresses left on corridors was not an isolated incident in the hotel.

He said there was a lack of training and system within the hotel over who should remove temporary mattresses when they had been used.

And he said health and safety training for management and handover procedures between shifts was ineffective.

The Blackpool couple died in the blaze on April 24, 2001. Hotel porter Lee Carson, aged 24, of Moses Gate, Farnworth, was later sentenced to a double life term for their manslaughter after he deliberately set fire to beds stacked against the wall of their third floor room.

The Moat House Hotel was charged with breaking two counts of fire certificate requirements.

Speaking on behalf of ESB, defence barrister Simon Hilton said that there had been a confused policy within the realms of housekeeping over who was responsible for the removal of temporary beds and mattresses.

Mr Hilton said that housekeeping services were leased to a professional cleaning company called HLF, and there was no clear policy between the hotel and cleaning company staff over who was responsible for removing temporary beds.

He said that the hotel did not have a cavalier attitude towards fire safety regulations and that it was not common practice for hotel staff and management to deliberately leave mattresses in corridors.

He said that this was the first occasion that ESB had faced prosecution over breaking health and safety regulations and that they had pleaded guilty to the offences at the first opportunity.

He said that stringent health and safety policies have since been implemented at the hotel, including in-house housekeeping and an electronic swipe card system for night patrol staff, which checks whether they have conducted a full patrol of the hotel.