We have written much about this, and everyone should be aware of just what “Corporate Manslaughter” is and if you’re not, scan back through our news stories on this website, or get your Google out, as its important that you know what your responsibilities are and if you need convincing about that, carry on reading and see just what penalties are likely to be!
OK, these are just draft guidelines, but any fatality considered to have happened as a result of a breach of health and safety regulations is going to be considered as “Corporate Manslaughter”.
The Sentencing Guidelines Council make it clear that companies convicted of Corporate Manslaughter can expect enormous fines, often into millions of pounds, with a £500,000 fine seeming to be the lowest you might expect to get. If however, you’re not convicted of Corporate Manslaughter, but found guilty of other health and safety offences and someone has died as a result, they are talking minimum tariff of £100,000 up to several hundred thousand pounds.
So now do you want to Google it!
OK, these are only guidelines at the moment and haven’t yet been adopted and are subject to consultation until 5th January 2010, but it seems that this is the direction they will take and clearly, it’s an indication of how seriously these situations will be treated.
So guys, read all you can, put as much as you can in place to avoid it and frankly, lots of simple things will help, but what ever you do, take a fresh look at the way you run your business and what you ask your employees to do and this will help you avoid finding yourselves in this most awful of situations.
