West Anglia Training Association - Corporate Manslaughter

Local business managers are always telling us of the difficulties posed by the seemingly ever-increasing mountain of red tape. But as a result of proposed new legislation, failure to effectively manager health and safety issues at work could result in unlimited fines and remedial orders for businesses. A twist in the tail though could then see local managers facing custodial prison sentences.

West Anglia Training Association, a national award winning health and safety training charity based in Huntingdon, is well placed to give advice on these matters. Seminar dates will soon be available for local businesses presented by Andrew Chistodoulou the MD at WATA

“I am not convinced the new law will achieve its aims of bringing larger companies to account”, says Andrew Christodoulou. He argues, “the clause referring to senior management could well form an escape route for large organisations. If the management failure in question is considered to be that of a non-senior manager, then the organisation will escape conviction under the new legislation.”

The new bill is making its way through parliament. Andrew Christodoulou explains the background to these changes, “The need for reform arises from concerns going back over 25 years. A number of serious accidents in the 1980's and 1990s caused a high number of fatalities but in none of the cases were there successful prosecutions. Many would argue no-one was properly held to account for the associated deaths.”

In contrast, following the deaths of four children in the Lyme Bay canoe tragedy, charges were proven against both the company and the managing director, who was jailed for three years.

“The problem lies within the existing law on manslaughter”, Andrew explains further, “for a conviction to be successful it is necessary to identify an individual who had direct involvement in the failure that caused death. In practice this means the criteria are more easily proved within a small company.”

“In many well know cases such as the Herald of Free Enterprise, the Kings Cross Station fire, the Piper Alpha oil rig fire, the Hillsborough stadium tragedy, and the Great Western rail crash in 1997, in which in all over 550 people died,” says Christodoulou, “the Crown prosecutions failed because the senior figure who had failed to ensure safety could not be identified.”

Andrew Christodoulou believes that the new law may simply heighten the risk of exposure to smaller and middle-sized companies. “The new law threatens to be a double whammy for smaller companies where by definition all managers are senior. “The new law is designed to make the conviction of large organisations more straightforward and likely; it may fail in that objective and ironically simply double the risk to those smaller companies where responsible senior management can be readily identified.”

There really is a concern for double jeopardy, with conviction under the new corporate law being followed by a further prosecution under existing law on manslaughter. Local bosses need to be aware and the WATA free seminar is a good starting point.

“It has always been necessary for company directors and senor managers to be aware of their legal obligations to ensure effective management of health and safety in their businesses. Impending changes this summer could well double the penalty for companies and their directors if professional advice is not available from well-trained internal advisers. WATA is the local specialist trainer to minimise that risk.”

To book your place:
tel: 01480 435544
email: info@wata.co.uk