when the customer is informed that their lighting circuit has no cpc and they refuse to have it rewired or the metal fittings replaced with plastic etc, at what point would the customer take the electrician to court and on what grounds. As already mentioned (many times) their installation has been left safer by the electrician than it was beforehand and the risks were highlighted to the customer who failed to take corrective action. Had the electrician been negligent in their work which resulted in someone being suffering a shock (or worse) or even a fire etc, then they would likley have some success pursuing a claim, but again as mentioned many times, in the scenario given the customer never had cpc in their circuit to start with so the spark isn't to blame for this.
I would be interested to learn of how many electricians have been successfully prosecuted in court in the situation described above (I would imagine it would be zero)?
I honestly wouldn't lose a moments sleep in this situation as my rear is covered. What I am more concerned with is the unsafe installations I see on an almost weekly basis done by builders, bathroom, kitchen fitters (or anyone taking payment from the house owner), who aren't registered (and subsequently haven't issued a cert) and left a potentially unsafe installation. Sadly I have also seen too many installations done by registered sparks that were far from the required standard. We hear of the occasional person being prosecuted, which I would guess doesn't realistically even account for as many as 0.001% of the offenders.