Scalding death bathroom door could have been replaced 'decades' earlier

The former manager of a hotel where an elderly guest was scalded to death after his bathroom door could not be opened said the problem could have been fixed "decades" earlier.

Wallace Hunter died at the Pitlochry Hydro in 2019 after being trapped in the bath, while guests and emergency services tried to smash in the door.

Efforts to help the 75-year-old from Eaglesham, East Renfrewshire, were hampered by the door opening outwards and being bolted from the inside.

Christopher Stanton told a Fatal Accident Inquiry (FAI) that replacement locks with a safety release would have only cost an estimated £80 a room.

Mr Stanton, 56, general manager of the hotel for almost 25 years, accepted he was partly to blame for what had happened with the door.

He told Alloa Sheriff Court: “I've got to take a percentage of the responsibility for that.

"If asked a direct question, could I have foreseen this was a problem? The answer has to be yes.

“But I didn't, and nor did anybody else. I wish I had."

Mr Stanton said he was heartbroken over Mr Hunter's death.

He said: “I just shudder at the reality that came about that morning because of something that could have been dealt with sooner – 20 years, 30 years before."

He said all bathrooms at the hotel with outward-opening doors had now had their locks removed completely.

The inquiry heard that a Health and Safety Executive investigation found that the mixer tap in Mr and Mrs Hunter's bathroom was more than 30 years old.

Its temperature control was “very sensitive”, and it did not satisfactorily isolate the hot water when the cold water shut off.

Mr Stanton admitted that old-style shower and bath taps which were then still in use in 11 rooms at the 73-bedroom hotel hotel – including Mr and Mrs Hunter's – were “confusing and complicated”.

The inquiry heard that 19 complaints about the controls, high temperatures, “boiling hot” showers or lack of cold water, were recorded in the hotel maintenance log in the nine months leading up to Mr Hunter's death.

The temperature control on the shower in Mr and Mrs Hunter's room was logged as “iffy” and the shower reported as “too hot” only weeks before the tragedy.

Mr Stanton said: “Customers would come down and say they were struggling with it. We'd go up and show them, if we had time.

“My feelings were that the vast majority of the time they just didn't know how to work them but I do accept that by the law of averages some of them did have genuine problems."

Mr Stanton said all the older-style taps were replaced last year.

He said: “Over 20 years as manager we'd recorded maybe two or three scalds, minor ones, so I didn't think we had a problem with that.”

Procurator fiscal depute Gail Adair asked: “So the possibility of somebody receiving a fatal injury from scalding was not something that was in your mind?”

Mr Stanton replied: “I can look the family in the eye because I couldn't imagine that, in any scenario.”

The company that owned the hotel has since gone into liquidation and it is now under new ownership.

The inquiry continues on Monday.