Israr Fazal charged couples with young children up to £100 a week to live in squalid conditions
LONDON – A millionaire landlord who housed tenants in filthy and dangerous flats while he lived in a spacious suburban mansion has been jailed.
Israr Fazal, 54, was criticised by a judge for confining tenants to ‘slum conditions’ at the same time as he was ‘living in the lap of luxury’.
He and his son have been jailed for three months each after renting out decrepit flats – which were branded ‘death traps’ by inspectors – to vulnerable families.
Up to 12 families – mostly Eastern European couples, some with young children – paid £100 per week to live in appalling conditions in an inner-city area of Manchester.
One flat, rented by a couple with a young child, had a first-floor landing littered with discarded furniture, mattresses, beds, fridges and washing machines.
Electric and gas metres were damaged and bare electrical wires fell from a ceiling, which had collapsed. The flat’s electrics had also been by-passed.
Meanwhile Fazal owned a £1.3million house in a private cul-de-sac in Hale Barns, Cheshire, where neighbours include former Manchester United stars Roy Keane and Bryan Robson.
He and his son Shahbaz were prosecuted after council investigators, acting on a complaint, discovered a building damage to the flats, as well as a serious health and safety failings.
Council enforcement officers contacted the fire service, and their investigations discovered that no fire alarms had been installed and statutory fire risk assessments had not been carried out.
Fire escapes were blocked so there was no means of escape, and there was also no emergency lighting in the building.
Although the flats were littered with mouse droppings, Fazal ran a cash-and-carry underneath them.
At Manchester Crown Court Fazal admitted six fire and safety offences. Shahbaz, 30, pleaded guilty to housing condition charges and fire and safety offences.
Passing sentence, judge Roger Thomas told them: ‘It’s wholly evident from the photographs and the description that the people who lived in those flats that they were living in squalor effectively.
‘Having taken those flats you must have done very little indeed to make the accommodation habitable for the poor people who lived there and from whom you took weekly cash payments
‘The bigger thing that one can’t help but remark on is while you were trading in that way, you for your own personal comfort were living at the very opposite end of the housing spectrum.
‘You were being treated to a very substantial home yet while you were living in the lap of luxury the people you were responsible for were living in slum conditions.
‘No fire broke out and nobody was injured, but the risk was very real and your culpability is considerable.’
Earlier the court heard how Israr – who ran a curry house in Rusholme, Manchester – had been convicted in 1997 of trading when he was bankrupt.
In 2001 he was jailed for 18 months for kidnapping and threatening to kill a Sikh priest in a row over his daughter’s arranged marriage.
After the case Manchester councillor Paul Andrews said: ‘It is absolutely shocking that a landlord in 21st-century Manchester is content to let a family live in this kind of squalor, when he is living content in Hale Barns surrounded by rich footballers.
‘Slum landlords should be a thing of the past and I hope this serves as a warning to others who think they can rent out revolting properties and get away with it.’
