A COWBOY gasman rode roughshod over the rules of the industry putting people at risk of an explosion like the one which killed a child and destroyed three homes at Heysham, a court was told.

Forty-five-year-old Adam Kilbride pretended he was registered under the nationwide Gas Safe scheme.

However he last legitimately worked under that scheme 13 years ago and has since received no up to date training.

Despite this his name was put forward by an estate agent and a letting agent in his home town of Burnley.

He demanded cash from his customers but gave out receipts printed with the official Gas Safe logo.

Kilbride of Grassington Road, Burnley, who runs a restaurant-bar in the town, pleaded guilty to an offence of masquerading as a registered Gas Safe engineer and two offences of doing work which contravened Health and Safety laws.

Peter Hayes, prosecuting for the Health and Safety Executive, told District Judge Jane Goodwin sitting at Blackpool Magistrates Court: “The Gas Safe scheme means a person is trained up to date and is competent.

"Everyone has seen this week the gas explosion in Lancashire in which properties were destroyed, a child killed and others injured.

“There is also the risk of carbon monoxide gas poisoning known as the 'Silent Killer' when work is not done properly.”

The court heard that Kilbride’s name was given to a woman when she moved into a house on Bamburgh Drive, Burnley, which needed a new central heating boiler.

“The woman gave Kilbride £2,150 down payment after he told he was Gas Safe registered,” said the prosecutor The judge heard that Kilbride did not fit the boiler properly leaving it unsealed and at one stage it remained on high heat which the property owner could not switch off.

Kilbride refused to take her calls demanding he return and to add insult to injury would not return her house keys which forced her to change the locks.

The angry woman contacted Gas Safe who said he wasn’t registered with them and had not been since 2008.

Gas Safe inspected his work and found nine defects.

A tenant of a house in Ford Street, Burnley, had Kilbride recommended and he submitted a quote for gas work again and asked for £1,000 in cash for which he issued a receipt with the Gas Safe logo.

The HSE then sent Kilbride a prohibition order forbidding him from working on gas fittings and piping stating the father-of-one was a danger to the public.

The body asked for £6,300 costs before Kilbride’s lawyer Selina Akhtar said: "He is full of remorse for what he has done. He will never be in this line of work again so there is no risk of reoffending.”

The judge told Kilbride: "I am happy that you posed the highest risk level of harm and that can mean death.

“It was a deliberate and intentional act a flagrant breach of the law.”

“What you did falls outside my powers of sentence available in this court.”

She warned Kilbride he faces a jail term when he is sentenced at Preston Crown Court on July 16. He was bailed.

The cause of a suspected gas explosion in Heysham will likely not be known for “some considerable time”, a police chief has said.

George Arthur Hinds, aged two, died while a 44-year-old man and a 50-year-old woman remain in a critical condition following the incident on Sunday.