10th February 2001

Corporate Manslaughter

In the UK, the Involuntary Homicide Bill (also known as the Corporate Manslaughter Bill) if enacted, will increase the potential for prosecution of individuals within organisations for health & safety failures causing death where these are attributable to management failures. Under existing law, prosecution of individual directors and senior managers is only likely to be successful if it can be proven that they acted as the 'controlling mind' that caused the manslaughter. By shifting the focus from controlling mind to evidence of management failures, the scope for individuals who exercise some degree of supervision of personnel or functions to be prosecuted is far greater than exists under present law. See the Law Commission for England and Wales web-site for details of the Bill and the HSE web-site's Press Release pages ( www.hse.gov.uk ) for the Health & Safety Commission's comments. It has been widely reported in the media that a number of individuals within Railtrack and their contractor Balfour Beatty may face corporate manslaughter charges in relation to the Hatfield rail crash in October 2000.

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