Mains Cable Under Stairs / Through Plaster Board

[Door7000]

I am running a network cable down stair treads and risers into the under stairs cupboard where the router is located.

I drilled a small hole in a tread away from where cables should be and inspected the area with a camera. I was surprised to see what I believe is a mains cable going through the plasterboard and what looks to be plastered over without any sort of protection.

Does this look right or has someone made a mess of things?



That image is viewed looking down from the stair tread (step 7) and shows two cables coming out of the plasterboard (stair wall) and down into the topside of the understairs plasterboard 'ceiling'. Note Cable X then note it in this image:



Directly ahead is the stairs wall and where the under stairs board / ceiling meets there is a distinct ridge in the plasterboard. I am presuming this is Cable X from above?

If this is correct then should this not be in some kind of conduit? Surely it is not just chased out into the board and filled over with polyfiller? Note this is a 3 year old house so the electrics have not been modified by someone later.

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Back to the network cable. I would like to run this through the tread and into Point A in image 1, exiting at Point A in image 2. The router is directly underneath this (3ft below) so I will put this in trunking for neatness. Can anyone see any issues doing that?

 

[sparxxxx]

The plasterboard is the protection

 

[Door7000]

I assumed that as this was not in a safe zone it had to have some kind of protection over it such as a metal plate?

If I had not spotted the cable with the camera I would not have known the cable was in the plasterboard in the cupboard at that location. I had used a cable / stud locator but it just goes wild in there due to media cables, electricity meter, CU nearby.