The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (c. 19) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that seeks to broaden the law on corporate manslaughter in the United Kingdom. The act created a new offence respectively named corporate manslaughter in England and Wales and Northern Ireland, and corporate homicide in Scotland.

The act received royal assent on 26 July 2007 and came into force on 6 April 2008.

Background

In the United Kingdom, a corporation is considered a juristic person and can be capable of committing, being convicted of and sentenced for, a criminal offence.Interpretation Act 1978, s. 5 However, some conceptual difficulty lies in fixing a corporation with the appropriate mens rea.Herring (2004) p. 720 Before the Act, a corporation could only be convicted of manslaughter if a single employee of the company committed all the elements of the offence and was of sufficient seniority to be seen as embodying the "mind" of the corporation.Tesco Supermarkets Ltd v. Nattrass AC 153Attorney General's Reference (No. 2 of 1999) QB 796, CA The practical consequence of this was that such convictions were rare and there was public discontent where it was perceived that culpable corporations had escaped censure and punishment.

A Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill was introduced to the House of Commons by Home Secretary John Reid on 20 July 2006.

The act The offence The act attempts to align the offence of corporate killing north and south of the border. An indictable offences. 1(6) is committed if the way in which an organisation's activities are managed or organised:s. 1(1) Causes a person's death; and Amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care owed by the organisation to the deceased;

—and the way in which its activities are managed or organised by its senior management is a substantial element in the breach.s. 1(3) Prosecution in England or Wales requires the permission of the Director of Public Prosecutions, and in Northern Ireland, the Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Irelands. 17 and no natural person can be charged with aiding and abetting the offence.s. 18 In Scotland, all prosecutions are initiated by a procurator fiscal. The common law offence of gross negligence manslaughter, as it applies to corporations, is abolished.S. 20

Organisations liable The offence applies to:s. 1(2) corporations; partnerships,s. 14 trade unions and employers' associations, that are themselves employers. police forces; various, but not all, government departments.sch. 1, s. 11

Relevant duty of care A relevant duty of care is one of several duties of care owed by the organisation under the law of negligence and is a question of law for the judge.s. 2 Various government policy decisions;s. 3 policing,ss. 4, 13 militaryss. 5, 12 and child protections. 6 activities; and emergency responsess. 7 are excluded.

There are particular duties of care owed to persons in custody (s. 2(1)(d)) and, owing to the sensitivity and difficulty of such duties, implementation of this section was delayed. The Ministry of Justice published a report on progress towards implementation in July 2008.

Gross breach A breach of a duty of care by an organisation is a gross breach if the alleged conduct amounts to a breach of that duty that falls far below what can reasonably be expected of the organisation in the circumstances.s. 1(4)(b) The jury must consider whether the evidence shows that the organisation failed to comply with any health and safety legislation that relates to the alleged breach, and if so:s. 8 how serious that failure was; and how much of a risk of death it posed.

The jury may also:

consider the extent to which the evidence shows that there were attitudes, policies, systems or accepted practices within the organisation that were likely to have encouraged the failure, or to have produced tolerance of it; and have regard to any health and safety guidance that relates to the alleged breach.

Senior management Senior management means the persons who play significant roles in:s. 1(4)(c)

the making of decisions about how the whole or a substantial part of its activities are to be managed or organised; or the actual managing or organising of the whole or a substantial part of those activities.

Penalties On conviction a corporation may be ordered to remedy any breach,S. 9 or to publicise its failures,S. 10 or be given an unlimited fine. The Sentencing Council issued a steps based definitive guideline, effective from 1 February 2016, for sentencing the offence of corporate manslaughter. The recommendations of the guideline are based on the size and turnover of the organisations with a starting fine of £300,000 and a no limit maximum. If an individual is also found liable for the offence of manslaughter, it can be prosecuted under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 ruled by the same sentencing guideline.

Convictions + Company name Conviction date Victim's name Cause of death Fine (plus costs)1 Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings 15 February 2011 Alex Wright Geologic trial pit collapse. £385,0002 JMW Farm Ltd 8 May 2012 Robert Wilson Large metal bin fell off forklift and onto victim. £187,5003 Lion Steel Ltd 3 July 2012 Steven Berry Fall through a factory roof. £480,0004 J Murray and Sons 7 October 2013 Norman Porter Pulled into an animal feed mixing machine. £100,0005 Princes Sporting Club 22 November 2013 Mari-Simon Cronje Eleven-year-old struck by speedboat. £135,0006 Mobile Sweepers (Reading) Ltd 2 December 2013 Malcolm Hinton Crushed attempting to repair a street-sweeping truck. £8,0007 Cavendish Masonry Ltd 22 May 2014 David Evans Builder crushed by a two-ton block of limestone. £150,0008 Sterecycle (Rotherham) Ltd 7 November 2014 Michael Whinfrey Plant explosion. £500,0009 A Diamond and Son (Timber) Ltd 17 December 2014 Peter Lennon Crushed while carrying out machinery maintenance. £75,00010 Peter Mawson Ltd 19 December 2014 Jason Pennington Fell through a skylight while working on a roof. £200,00011 Pyranha Mouldings Ltd 12 January 2015 Alan Catterall Accidentally locked inside industrial oven. £200,00012 Nicole Enterprises 12 March 2015 Thomas Houston Crushed by a static caravan. £100,00013 Kings Scaffolding 28 April 2015 Adrian Smith Fell through a skylight. £300,00014 Huntley Mount Engineering Ltd 14 July 2015 Cameron Minshull Sixteen-year-old apprentice became entangled on a lathe. £150,00015 CAV Aerospace Ltd 24 July 2015 Paul Bowers Crushed by aircraft components. £600,00016 Linley Development Ltd 7 September 2015 Gareth Jones Crushed by wall collapse while excavating. £200,00017Cheshire Gates and Automation Ltd7 September 2015Semelia CampbellTrapped in a faulty electric gate.£50,00018 Baldwins Crane Hire Ltd 22 December 2015 Lindsay Easton Crane crashed into an earth bank. £700,00019 Sherwood Rise Ltd February 2016 Ivy Atkin Died in a care home. £300,00020 Monavon Construction Ltd June 2016 Gavin Brewer and Stuart Meads Fell through roadside hoarding. £500,00021Bilston Skips Ltd August 2016 Jagpal Singh Fell from the top of a skip. £600,00022SR and JR Brown LtdMarch 2017Benjamin EdgeFell from a roof.£300,00023Koseoglu Metalworks LtdMay 2017Nikolai ValkovFell through a skylight.£300,00024Odzil Investments Ltd£500,00025Martinisation London LtdMay 2017Tomasz Procko and Kyrol SzymanskiFell from a balcony when the railing was crushed by a sofa being lifted into a flat.£1,200,00026Master Construction Products (Skips) LtdNovember 2017Safi Qais KhanCrushed by machinery.£255,00027Deco-PakJanuary 2022Andrew TibbottCrushed to death by a robotic packing arm.

Notes

References

Bibliography

External links

Explanatory notes to the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.