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New HSE campaign to reduce 'preventable' slips, trips and falls
The (HSE) has launched a campaign to reduce the number of slips, trips and falls in the UK as it has revealed statistics showing that they are the most common cause of major injuries in British workplaces.
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News from MCM - Article 90
First Corporate Manslaughter Case Reaches Courts
However much we might all want to pat UK plc on the back for the genuinely impressive reduction in workplace fatalities since 2007, it only takes one death to serve as a stark reminder of the dangers that may be present in almost any business.
One such case that has made the headlines this year concerns the death of Alexander Wright, a 27 year-old geologist who was killed when a trench collapsed on him while he was collecting soil samples.
Whatever the outcome of the case, it will go down in history as the first to be tried under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. Following the accident in September last year and the subsequent investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service decided that there was enough evidence to warrant prosecution under the new law.
Mr Wright's employer, Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings, faces an additional health and safety charge, as does the company's sole director who has also been personally charged with manslaughter through gross negligence. A company can be found guilty of corporate manslaughter if the way in which its activities are managed or organised causes a death and amounts to a gross breach of its duty of care to the person who died.
Convicted companies could face fines of up to 10 per cent of annual turnover and there is provision for courts to force the company to publicise a case through a publicity order. This first case is unlikely to provide a perfect test of the new legislation, which was introduced to facilitate prosecutions in more complicated cases where the size and complexity of organisational structures has made it difficult to identify those culpable and secure convictions in the past.
As a relatively small business, with only one director, the defendant organisation bares little resemblance to those involved in the Hatfield, Piper Alpha, Herald of Free Enterprise and other disasters that inspired the legislation. Nonetheless, proceedings will inevitably be the subject of great interest, especially in the legal world, when the case resumes at Bristol Crown Court in February next year.
November 2009