The owner of a hotel dubbed the “worst in Britain” with a history of cockroach infestations and squalid conditions has been told by a judge to check out for good after yet more unwelcome guests moved in - this time mice.
Stephen Gethin, 62, has owned the Happy Vale Hotel in Mornington Crescent for more than 30 years. But now he has been officially deemed unfit to run the business after hotel inspectors found raw sewage, flies and a mouse infestation in the five-storey townhouse.
Gethin’s mother opened it more than 80 years ago as a bed and breakfast for labourers. Now her son runs the property, overlooking a park, as a hostel for the homeless and vulnerable, pocketing up to £130,000 a year in payments from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).
In 2012 he was fined £5,000 after officials discovered cockroaches in the 17-bedroom hotel and now he has been issued with a further £20,000 penalty.
It was imposed by Highbury Corner magistrates’ court last week after Gethin was found guilty of 15 separate health and safety charges between August and November 2013. District Judge Newton said Gethin “exhibited a callous disregard for the safety and welfare of vulnerable residents, a wilful refusal to comply with statutory obligations, regular contraventions of legislation over the years, had failed to respond to advice from the council, and had exhibited a dismissive attitude towards the local authority.”
Councillor Julian Fulbrook, Camden’s cabinet member for housing, said afterwards: “It should be renamed the Unhappy Vale Hotel, it’s really quite grim.
“It fails on all the standards and regulations which is why the judge, having considered all the evidence, has come to a view that Mr Gethin is unfit to run it. That’s very rare.
“I think it’s very possibly the worst hotel in Britain.”
Gethin has been given time to find a replacement manager for the hotel. But the council has threatened to take it over if he fails to do so, using compulsory purchase powers which allow land or property to be obtained without the consent of the owner.
Last week one resident at the Happy Vale, former journalist Ken Macleod, 70, was rushed to hospital after he was discovered in his room at the hotel with festering wounds to his leg.
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The pensioner claims the council failed to offer him help, but a spokesman said that despite repeated attempts to contact him he “did not make himself available”.
