A SWIMMING pool operator responsible for one of the UK's largest outbreaks of a water-born disease has refused to apologise to the victims.

York Magistrates Court heard that at least 165 young children and their parents fell ill with diarrhoea and other symptoms after they visited Dolphin Swim School, run by Ryan Lee Griffin and his partner Donna Leanne Kettlewell in York Business Park, Poppleton.

Many of the victims were aged under five and two adults had to be admitted to hospital. 

Simon Clegg, prosecuting, for City of York Council said 61 per cent of those who went into its pool contracted giardiasis, a water-born disease that produces diarrhoea and abdominal pains and can last for 21 days.

As he left court after admitting responsibility for health and safety breaches that led to the outbreak, Griffin said he had nothing to say to the victims and refused to apologise.

"The council should apologise," he said.

Mr Clegg said Griffin, now 27, was responsible for ensuring the pool’s water was clean and safe to use, but failed to do so.

When a council planning officer visited it in its third month open to the public, the water was so cloudy it obscured a toy on the pool bottom.

Griffin didn’t follow the widely published Code of Practice for swimming pool operators or use the appropriate chemicals and the pump and filter were only suitable for a pool used by about four people at a time. The pool routinely had more than 17 in it at a time.

“This all created an environment where an outbreak or some form of illness became inevitable,” said Mr Clegg.

“What is clear is that there were savings made at the expense of safety. The manner in which this pool was operated, the prosecution say, befitted domestic arrangements rather than a commercial one.”

There was only one toilet and shower, the nappy bin was open and not enclosed, and there was no gap between lessons.

Jobless Griffin, of Blackmoor Lane, Leeds, pleaded guilty to failure to ensure his customers’ health and safety and failure to carry out a risk assessment.

He was given a 12-month community order with 25 days' rehabilitative activities and ordered to pay £1,500 prosecution costs and an £85 statutory surcharge.

District judge Michael Fanning said he would have ordered him to do unpaid work as well had he been fit.

As a 15-year-old Griffin was jailed for three years for manslaughter after he killed a man with a punch Qualified swim teacher Miss Kettlewell, now 29, of Hawthorn Drive, Barlby, was formally acquitted after she denied the charges.

York Magistrates Court heard she had run the school successfully for years before it started using the pool erected and maintained by Griffin.

For Griffin, Ian Anderson said the couple had sunk their life savings and raised money through family and friends to start the school, and had lost everything.

Griffin had pleaded guilty on the basis the pump and filter were not appropriate for the pool.

“No treatment they could reasonably have used could have stopped this outbreak,” said Mr Anderson.

“They had no intention of exposing the users of the pool to a risk to their health and safety.”

Griffin was now unemployed and suffered from depression and anxiety.

Mr Clegg said the couple voluntarily closed the pool on the advice of Public Health England on October 23. It has never reopened.

They held their first lessons on July 10, 2015. The first cases of giardiasis were reported in August 2015 but were regarded as isolated cases.

On October 12, two cases were reported in Leeds and two more were reported in York on October 22 leading to the pool’s closure. The incubation period meant cases continued until December with patients in North and East Yorkshire as well as York and Leeds.

Public Health England said later it was the biggest outbreak ever in the UK. Normally, York would see five cases of giardiasis a year.

Just under 250 customers were registered at the school.

Cllr Jenny Brooks, executive member for housing and safer neighbourhoods, said: “The vast majority of local businesses follow safe and proper practices. Dolphins Swim School chose to ignore health and safety legislation which endangered customers, local residents and businesses and put the health of children at considerable risk.

“This outcome shows the severity of this case and that we will take legal action to ensure proper health and safety standards are maintained.”