"Chris Bacon" wrote in message
...
Bob Mannix wrote:
I am 100% certain the meaning of competenet person will, eventually, be
decided in court

The meaning is that the person is competent. If they do a bad
job, they were not competent. That's all there is to it! That
is *why* the term is not spelt out in black and white, so that
the accused can't just say "Well I passed all the tests, so
it was not my fault".

Clearly, if you were the judge, that would be true! )



I am 90% certain the reason for the court hearing will be because of
incompetency (biassing the judge against DIY)

It makes no difference. Why did the job blow up? If it's because
of an installation fault, it is because the installer was not
competent. If it's because of something else (someone drilled
into the gas pipe) then it's nothing to do with whether the
installer was competent.

I meant the court hearing mentioned in the first para., which will be the
one where the precise meaning of the act is defined - there may be other
reasons for a court case as you say.


I am 70% certain the judge (taking the above and the intent of the law
into account) will come down against DIY and pro CORGI, making competency
almost impossible to demonstrate outside CORGI.

The *only* reason that something should "go to court" is because
the installer was perhaps not competent. The standard of work
decides that

Indeed but I believe you are missing the point. The gas installation
regulations and the requirement for CORGI registration or a "competent
person" were NOT brought into being to allow only the successful prosecution
of incompetent people AFTER the event. They were put in place to prevent
accidents by trying to ensure that work was done in the first place by
competent people (the issue of whether they will be successful in this is a
different topic!). To do this you cannot rely on "if the work was done OK
the installer was competent" approach. There has to be some demonstration of
competence before the job is done. If a person really is competent then
ther's clearly no problem. The problems start when they are not and think
they are.

We shall see the truth eventually, whatever is said here.

Bob Mannix