Over one third of mobile chargers and leads used by students who attend an Enfield school failed safety tests in a recent trading standards testing event.

Last month Enfield Trading Standards joined forces with leading charity Electrical Safety First at Chace Community School. The charity funded an opportunity for the students to bring in phone chargers and leads to be assessed by an electrical engineer to see if they were safe.

Industry representatives from Samsung and Apple also attended to detect any counterfeit products.

Some 220 students took part in the event from a cross section of school years. The results were as follows:

• 44% of leads checked failed (98 out of 225)
• 22% of plugs checked failed (20 out of 90)
• 5% of items were found to be counterfeit (16 out of 317)

All the plugs and chargers that were found to be unsafe or counterfeit were replaced with new genuine items.

Stephen Knight- Head of Operations for London Trading Standards said: “Enfield Council’s trading standards team and Electric Safety First are to be congratulated on a successful project that has undoubtedly helped educate young people in the dangers of using unsafe and counterfeit electrical goods.”

“It has also directly removed over a hundred unsafe phone chargers from young people’s homes in Enfield. This is another example of some of the important work carried out by trading standards teams across the capital.”

If you are concerned about product safety call Citizens Advice on 03454 04 05 06

Unsafe charger leads brought in by pupils

Chargers that failed safety tests