Britt Jones
When you’re deciding on the perfect Christmas gift for a loved one, the usual considerations include things like it being fun, durable and affordable.
But a fire hazard? It’s not normally up on the list unless it’s a known danger.
Unfortunately, one dad who decided to make his son’s Christmas the best day ever ended up with a tragic end due to an e-bike.
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Andrew Beaton, from Lancaster, was ‘left with nothing’ after the battery inside of the bike set his family home on fire, with those inside barely making it out.
The 60-year-old dad ended up suffering burns to his body after the e-bike he bought for his 12-year-old son Andy ‘exploded like fireworks’ and engulfed the home in flames within minutes.
For an e-bike that cost £600 online, how was the father to know that just six months later, it would set the house’s stairs on fire and that the family only escaped due to his son spotting flames at 4am.
Beaton spoke to the Press Association about the incident: “An innocent purchase I bought online from a marketplace destroyed our home and left us with nothing.
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“The e-bike was a Christmas gift for my son, something I thought he’d love, but when it was charging overnight by the stairs it went off like a grenade.
"Our stairs caught alight and my family were minutes from not making it out alive. We were left without our home for six months, only moving back in last week.
“My children are still affected by the fire. The trauma of it doesn’t leave you when you’re faced with flames in the middle of the night like we were.
“I want to warn other people out there shopping online for Christmas gifts to be careful. I thought what I was buying would be safe but it was a ticking time bomb.
"Stick to your reputable high street retailers if you can, nobody wants to end up buying a gift that risks the safety of your family.”
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Now, the family are planning to rebuild their home for £60,000 after staying with his mother-in-law for the last six months.
He said to Metro: “There needs to be more regulation over the selling of these batteries – I actually bought the e-bike to stop my son from using his e-scooter which I thought was too dangerous.
“With the cost of living still squeezing households, more people are going to choose to buy cheaper electrical equipment, which will just lead to more fires.”
Electrical Safety First came out to say that consumers should buy from reputable high street or trusted retailers as 52 percent of shoppers said they planned to shop mostly on online marketplaces to cut costs this Christmas.