Health and Safety and Corporate Manslaughter

There have been a couple of cases, one that we highlighted recently that brings to the fore the issue of Corporate Manslaughter in the case of Health and Safety offences. Doing the job right tells the story of a building company and freelance Health and Safety Advisor who were both found guilty of Manslaughter and have recently been sent to jail for the offences.

On the 3rd February, 2015 a building and joinery firm was sentenced after pleading guilty in December to ‘corporate manslaughter’ and a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act by failing to ensure the safety of employees. The company was fined £200,000 for the corporate manslaughter offence, and £20,000 for the Health and Safety breach.

The owner of the company, also pleaded guilty to a breach of the same act and was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for two years, 200 hours unpaid work, a publicity order to advertise what happened on the company website for a set period of time, and to take out a half page spread in the local newspaper and pay costs of £31,504.77.

Clearly the courts are taking these matters very seriously indeed. However, there are other moves in the pipeline which may have even greater consequences. The Sentencing Council has released draft guidelines for the judiciary to place greater emphasis on realistic fines for both Corporate Manslaughter and Health and Safety offences. This could result in the maximum fines for the most serious offences been set at £20 million for Corporate Manslaughter and £10 million for Health and Safety.