High Street chain New Look was today fined a record £400,000 for fire safety breaches after a devastating blaze turned one of their shops into a potential death trap.
The Oxford Street store, which allegedly had inadequate emergency exits and poorly trained staff, was also ordered to pay more than £136,000 costs for what Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC said could have been a 'disaster almost too awful to contemplate'.
London's Southwark Crown Court heard the place had been packed with early evening shoppers when smoke began pouring from a second storey window.
Even though the alarm sounded, it was mysteriously turned off and customers were allowed to continue making purchases.
Even when it reset itself and began again, staff failed to react.
It was only when passers-by shouted warnings that they realised there was a problem, started 'panicking' and ordered everyone out.
The court was told that by the time people began streaming through the front door, smoke was billowing from the building and windows were being blown out.
Some of those fleeing fell over while others ducked shards of glass raining from above.
A 999 call from the store was made by a security guard just before 7pm on April 26, 2007 - several minutes after the manager of a building opposite had already alerted the emergency services.
One shopper, Joanne Weaver, who said the fire alarm went off 'intermittently', said an initial lack of staff reaction did nothing to 'suggest there was a problem'.
So she wandered down to the basement - potentially the most dangerous place during a fire as it has no properly available fire exit - and browsed through the shoe section.
Some 20 other customers were also there until a member of staff eventually told them the place was being evacuated.
She claimed that despite 'a sort of panic' then setting in, there was still 'no advice or assistance' given to shoppers, and no explanation as to what the problem was.
So, left to her own devices, Ms Weaver ran up an escalator, across the ground floor - unwittingly passing directly beneath the fire raging above - and out through the front door.
'I could hear the sound of windows breaking - and I felt the heat.'
She added: 'Staff within the shop did not seem to have a plan to evacuate people.
'They went from no cause for alarm, to panic.'
The court heard that all 150 people in the clothing retailer's store managed to escape unharmed, while another 300 were cleared from neighbouring premises.
Prosecutor Sada Naqshbandi said 30 Fire Brigade appliances ended up at the scene.
'The West End became gridlocked as traffic was diverted from the area and fire fighters worked through the night.'
She said the area remained closed to traffic for a further two days, although the Fire Brigade remained in attendance for more than a week.
The blaze, which 'virtually gutted' the building, forcing its demolition, was later found to have started in the second floor storeroom. The cause was never discovered.
New Look Retailers Ltd - which has more than 600 stores in Britain and abroad, 20,000 employees and is 30th in the Sunday Times 100 Top Track list of private companies - pleaded guilty to two counts.
They were fined £250,000 for failing to provide a 'suitable and sufficient' fire risk assessment for the premises and a further £150,000 for inadequate safety training to staff.
The £400,000 total is not only the largest imposed on a company in Britain for fire safety contraventions since new legislation came into force in 2006, but is thought to be the biggest ever financial penalty for such breaches.
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