John Lewis forced to stop selling reclining sofas over 'risk' they may go up in flames
The Office for Product Safety and Standards issued an urgent warning on John Lewis & Partners two-seater and three-seater slider sofas as they do not meet safety standards.
The report claims there is a 'faulty button on the recliner mechanism' that could cause the product to overheat and malfunction.
It states that this means there is a 'risk' the chair could catch on fire.
In the alert it claims the product does not meet the requirements of the Electrical Equipment Safety Regulations 2016.
Anyone who bought the seats between 5 August and 30 October this year was advised to unplug the product and immediately stop using the recline and charging functions.
The affected batches listed in the government report are the 2511-0089 two-seater and three-seater chenille sliding sofas in natural and navy with product codes 87023201, 87023202, 87021703, 87021702, 87021701 and 87021704.
Buyers are urged to contact the John Lewis & Partners Aftersales Team to arrange a visit and repair on 03456 049 049.
John Lewis said they contacted around 30 customers last month who were affected and replaced the impacted buttons.
After withdrawing the product from the market, they claimed the issues have now been resolved and the products on sale are now safe to use.
A John Lewis spokesperson said: "We want all customers to get the quality and service they expect from John Lewis.
"While we've received no customer complaints about this sofa or reports of this issue causing a fire, we issued this notice as a precaution after finding that one of the control buttons could be prone to overheating.
"Our tests also found that all safety measures worked as designed; the transformer immediately cut the power to the faulty button, preventing any further issue.
"We immediately contacted customers and have already had all the buttons replaced by a technician as a precaution."