Crime Solicitors

The worst sorts of corporate failures, in terms of efficient health and safety management can be effectively prosecuted by means of corporate manslaughter legislation.

It is possible for a business to be prosecuted for corporate manslaughter if a death is caused and it can be shown to be the result of neglect on the part of the company’s management. For example, if the company’s activities are conducted by the company’s senior management in such a way that they constitute a demonstrably gross breach of duty of care for the deceased, then a corporate manslaughter charge can be brought. The crucial point here is that the manner in which activities were organised or conducted by the senior management must have constituted a significant part of that breach.

The senior managers and owners of a company cannot personally be prosecuted under corporate manslaughter legislation, but they are open to prosecution at a personal level for various other types of offence relating to the management of health and safety. Gross negligence manslaughter and health and safety breaches are two such offences that are not affected by corporate manslaughter legislation and are designed to personally prosecute any individual managers or owners of companies found culpable. Personal prosecutions are made in cases where the evidence is sufficient and it is in the interests of the public to do so. Also, at a trial for corporate manslaughter, members of staff, as well as senior management, may be called as witnesses.

At a corporate manslaughter trial, the prosecution will ask the jury to consider the activities that were involved in the fatal accident and how these were organised or managed across the business, which includes investigating health and safety processes and systems, how these normally operate and how and why they failed in each individual case.

The staff members who make the decisions about how the company’s health and safety policies are followed will come under the spotlight and operational management will be one of the first areas investigated.

For a company to be in ‘gross breach’ means that its level of conduct must have fallen below what could have, under the circumstances, have been reasonably expected. Previous health and safety breaches, if any, will also be looked at by the jury and taken into account, especially their levels of seriousness and steps that may or may not have been subsequently taken by the company to rectify them.

Every company, however many employees it has, also has a duty of care in terms of its systems and working practises, the conditions of the premises or worksite and the products or services that its customers receive. There are no new duties created by the corporate manslaughter legislation, they are already there, covered by health and safety law and in the civil law of negligence. The corporate manslaughter offence is in place to encourage businesses to comply with the existing regulations.
If unsure of your position, either as an employee or an employer, concerning your company’s health and safety policies and how they are actually applied in the working environment, contact crime lawyers such as Duncan Lewis for more detailed information and advice.