Cameron House: Police officer faced chaotic scenes as hotel evacuated

A police officer faced "chaotic" scenes when he arrived at a blaze at a luxury hotel on the banks of Loch Lomond in 2017, an inquiry has heard.

PC Steven Prentice said guests were being evacuated from Cameron House as he reached the hotel at about 07:00.

The officer told the fatal accident inquiry (FAI) that no guest list was available to check for missing people when he first arrived.

The fire claimed the lives of Richard Dyson and Simon Midgley.

PC Prentice said police were called to the fire near Alexandria, West Dunbartonshire, at about 06:40 on 18 December 2017.

He told the inquiry at Paisley Sheriff Court that when he arrived there were already several fire appliances and police vehicles outside the hotel.

It was still dark and "very cold" with people standing around in nightwear.

"It was fairly chaotic. Everybody was panicking. People were upset," the officer said.

PC Prentice told the inquiry he wanted to get guests into one central place indoors and the hotel's boathouse was suggested. A fire officer then broke into the boathouse using an axe.

He said police did not immediately have "a manifest" or guest list available to them, but one was brought down later from the guest services building.

"We tried to get people to sit in groups together that they were staying in the hotel, so they could let us know if anyone was missing," he said.

"We took room numbers from the groups to try and work out if anyone was missing."

A Police Scotland incident log shown to the inquiry stated that guests began to assemble at the boat house at 07:16 - about 35 minutes after the initial 999 call.

PC Prentice and his colleague then started a head count, with the log at 08:09 reading: "All persons accounted for except for the two occupants of room eight. Surname Midgley."

He said: "Guests in one room were unaccounted for. I broadcasted it on the police radio and asked for officers to look out for any other person."

Mr Midgley and Mr Dyson were both found unconscious in the hotel and died later.

The inquiry heard that accounting for all the guests was a "long process" with constant interruptions from guests asking questions or wanting to retrieve medication or other personal items from the hotel.

Cameron House was ordered to pay £500,000 after admitting to breaches of fire safety rules at Dumbarton Sheriff Court in January 2021.

The Crown Office initially said an FAI was not needed because the circumstances of the fatalities had been established - but a review overturned the decision after Mr Midgley's mother, Jane Midgley, called for wider lessons to be learned.

A coroner in England ruled that the couple were unlawfully killed and raised concerns that he had not been allowed access to documents and CCTV footage by Scottish authorities.

The inquiry continues.