On 25/06/2012 19:02, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
Michael Kilpatrick wrote:
Hang on! Aren't you just speculating that Liam would not simply have
removed a socket cover, had there been one there, and inserted the mains
plug - that with the bare wire ends at the other end of the cable - into
exactly the same socket?

Liam was clearly capable of inserted a plug into a wall socket and it
has been clearly demonstrated that children below that age are easily
capable of removing a socket cover.

I'd often wondered - not having kids myself - up to what age are they
incapable of removing a dummy plug or whatever? And is it more difficult
to remove one than to plug something in? Also, since pretty well all
sockets are shuttered, what purpose does a dummy plug really serve?

I don't know, but somewhere on the Fatally Flawed website was a video of
a 1yr old removing a socket cover with consummate ease. Much younger
than Liam. Ergo, any child of Liam's age with the curiosity to plug in a
bare-wired flex and plug will do so if it wishes, socket cover or not.
Whether or not Fatally Flawed have presented their arguments
intelligently or not is a different question, perhaps.

Also, since only a minority of households probably (?) use socket covers
there are fewer incidents of any nature from which to draw a
statistically meaningful sample, quite possibly, I speculate. Therefore
it may not be truly possible to make comparisons or to suggest that the
statistics bear out one particular side of this argument, or not.

Michael