5 Actions against inspectors – indemnity. It is possible
to bring at common law an action for damages against
an inspector who negligently issues an improvement, or
more particularly, a prohibition, notice which causes loss
to the person against whom it is issued. If the inspector
loses his case then the Executive is given power under the
1974 Act to indemnify him (i.e. make good) any dam-
ages, costs or expenses which he incurs.
6 Obtaining of information. The Act carries provisions
under which the Commission or the Executive can
obtain information which is needed for the discharge of
their duties by the serving of a notice requiring the per-
son concerned to supply that information within a
specified time.
Offences due to the fault of
another person
The Act provides that if an offence under the Act was the
fault of some other person that other person is guilty of
the offence and may be charged and convicted of it
whether or not proceedings are taken against anyone
else who is responsible.
The effect of this provision is that, for example, an
executive of a company or other business organisation
may be prosecuted rather than the company or other
organisation where the Act was infringed because the
executive himself was at fault. However, before blame
can be passed on in this way the company or other
organisation should have a very good system to ensure,
for example, safety, which the executive did not in prac-
tice operate.
Offences by bodies corporate
This part of the Act also imposes potential liability upon
the executive of a company but not because the person
concerned was directlyinvolved in a failure, for ex-
ample, to operate a safety system, under the above pro-
vision, but where the offence was committed with his
consent, connivance or neglect.
In effect, the section will enable members of boards,
managers and company secretaries to be prosecuted where
nothing has been done by management to prevent the
commission of an offence under the Act or where with
knowledge of its commission management has consented
to, for example, a dangerous practice being carried on,
or has connived at its being carried on, as where a blind
eye has been turned on the wrongful activity.
Corporate killing
It has proved difficult successfully to prosecute com-
panies and their officers for manslaughter, even though
it has been clear that there have been management
failures in safety matters resulting in a death or deaths.
The problem under the present law is that prosecutions
for corporate manslaughter can be brought only where
a company through the controlling mind of one of its
agents carries out an act that fulfils the requirements of
the crime of manslaughter. It is necessary to identify the
agent in order to carry the crime back to the company,
and in all of the major disasters brought about by a fail-
ure of a company-supplied service – as in a ferry or train
disaster – the effective acts of carelessness are diffused
throughout the company’s structure.
In A-G’s Reference (No 2 of 1999)(2000) the Court of
Appeal affirmed the principle, in regard to a finding of
corporate manslaughter by gross negligence, that a cor-
poration cannot be convicted unless there is evidence
that establishes the guilt of an identified human indi-
vidual for the same crime.
One of the few convictions is to be found in Rv OLL
(1994), a prosecution heard at Winchester Crown Court
in 1994, where the managing director of an activity
centre was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for
manslaughter following the deaths of four teenagers in
the Lyme Bay canoe disaster. Here there was no difficulty
in establishing the controlling mind because the com-
pany was a ‘one-man band’.Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate
Homicide Act 2007
This Act came into force on 6 April 2008. It introduces
a new offence where there has been a gross organisa-
tional failing in the management of health and safety,
which has had fatal consequences.
The Act sets out a new offence for convicting an
organisation where a gross failure in the way activities
were managed or organised results in a person’s death.
This will apply to a wide range of organisations across
the public and private sectors. In England and Wales
and Northern Ireland, the new offence will be called
corporate manslaughter. It will be called corporate hom-
icide in Scotland.
Previously, a company could only have been convicted
of corporate manslaughter if there was enough evidence
to find a single senior person guilty. This approach did
not reflect the reality of modern corporate life. Under this
new approach, courts will look at management systemsPart 4Business resources