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For many years the manufacturers of these socket covers have been scaring gullible parents and even professional carers into buying what is basically a worthless and even potentially dangerous product.
You see them in church halls, play groups, homes, anywhere that children might be and people are lulled into a false sense of security, thinking that they are doing their best for their child's safety.
It may come as a shock to many that they are defeating the safety features of one of the World's best designed power sockets. If you aren't sure, try to get your fingers into a live power socket and touch the live terminal. Try as hard as you like, get your kids to try as well, they won't do it, I promise you. Now take one of these covers and put it in upside down. You will now find it much easier to touch the live terminals and toddlers will be able to fry themselves to their heart's content.
When you look at a UK 13 AMP plug you will notice that the earth pin is longer than the live and neutral pins. This means that the appliance is earthed before the power pins make contact when plugging in. Safety feature number 1.
The Earth pin also causes the safety shutter to lift, allowing the pins to make contact. With no plug in the socket there is a physical shield blocking access to the live terminals.
These socket covers are easy to break, they are often damaged when struck by vacuum cleaners. Snap off a piece of the cover them plug it in, you will see the safety shutter lift, exposing the live terminals, you now have a ready made child killer, or anyone who then attempts to remove the cover.
If the cover is damaged it is easy to poke small metal objects such as screwdrivers, paper clips or other tools. Given the vulnerability of these covers they become damaged easily.
My advice to you is: remove these from your home, if you send your child to a nursery or playgroup ask them to remove them from any rooms that your child may enter. The openings in a standard socket aren't big enough to admit even a new born baby's fingers, let alone an enquiring toddler's. Even if they did they would only touch the safety shutter, unless that feature had been defeated by using one of these lethal devices.
It may also concern you to know that there is no government safety standard for these devices, check out the bottom of the page: