Trevor Ridd

I am Paramdeep Bains HM Assistant Coroner for the coroner area of Birmingham and Solihull

I make this report under paragraph 7, Schedule 5, of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 and regulations 28 and 29 of the Coroners (Investigations) Regulations 2013.

Birmingham City Council You are under a duty to respond to this report within 56 days of the date of this report, namely  by 11 August 2026. I, the coroner, may extend the period if an appropriate application is made.

Your response must contain details of action taken or proposed to be taken, setting out thetimetable for action. Otherwise, you must explain why no action is proposed. I have a duty to send a copy of your response to the Chief Coroner. In accordance with the Chief Coroner’s Publication Policy, you should send me any representations regarding the publication of your response. These representations should be  made at the same time as the response is provided. I will pass any representations received to the Chief Coroner for a decision. Please note any links to webpages included in the response will not be checked for sensitive  information prior to publication, as the information is already online. The names of those who do not respond to PFD reports are regularly published on the Chief Coroner’s webpages Non-responses to Prevention of Future Death (PFD) reports – Courts andTribunals Judiciary .

SUMMARY OF THE CORONER’S CONCERN I remain concerned that despite two signals being generated within seconds of one another by the sprinkler system (a ‘fault’ and then a ‘fire’ signal), the individual operator failed to put a 999 call through to West Midlands Fire Service as it was treated as being part of the same  incident. It is not clear to me as to why this was treated as being part of the same incident and even so, why the individual operator still failed to put a 999 call through. I am concerned that were it not for the 999 call from Mr Ridd’s diligent neighbour reporting a  water leak, no call would have been put through to West Midlands Fire Service, when this  should have been done by the individual operator once the Alarm Receiving Centre had  received both a ‘fault’ and ‘fire’ signal from the same sprinkler system.