A COMPANY responsible for a "firetrap" hotel in the centre of York that put profit before public safety has lost its appeal against a £110,000 fine.

York magistrates heard earlier this year that 1,300 guests stayed at the Lamb and Lion Inn next to the Bar Walls in High Petergate after its fire alarm was condemned in December 2016 and before York firefighters closed it in March 2017 until the fire alarm was replaced.

One guest later described the inn to investigators as a "firetrap".

Andrea Parnham, for North Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service at the appeal said the period included the busy periods of Christmas and Valentine's Day.

The hotel's bar was not closed.

SlopingTactics Ltd of Halifax, which managed the hotel at the time, admitted three fire safety breaches, and was fined £110,000, plus £2,863 prosecution costs and a £170 statutory surcharge.

It appealed the sentence to York Crown Court where its barrister David Travers QC said the hotel was tendering for a new fire alarm system before the closure and had a night porter making regular checks of the building.

Judge Andrew Stubbs QC sitting with two magistrates dismissed the appeal. "We do find an element of profit being put before protection and this continued for a long period of time," he said.

"There are numerous incidents of poor fire safety at a time when the parent company should have been on heightened alert because of the state of the fire alarm," he said.

"They are a significant indication of the attitude of the parent company at that time (to fire safety)."

"It is significant that the company continued to operate exposing a large number of people. Not just guests, but residents of the adjacent properties and on the historic Walls were placed at risk over a protracted period."

The appeal bench saw photos taken when fire inspectors closed the hotel and heard of the company's actions in the preceding months.

SlopingTactic Ltd sold the Inn "within days" of it being closed to a company run by the sole director of SlopingTactic Ltd, Aimee Barker, and her husband Philip, York Crown Court heard.

Mr Travers said there was "nothing sinister" about the sale, which was part of a finance arrangement for the hotel.

SlopingTactics Ltd was no longer trading but was "being kept alive" so it could pay whatever punishment the court decided, he said.

The company must now pay a total of £114,085 including the fire authority's appeal costs of £1.051.