MPR instructed to defend corporate manslaughter and health and safety charges relating to steelworks

MPR Solicitors have been instructed by a company and one of it’s directors who is separately charged to defend in a case involving allegations of corporate manslaughter under the Corporate Manslaughter and Homicide Act 2007 (CMHCA) and 8 other charges under Health & Safety legislation.  The charges arise from a tragic and fatal incident at a steelworks in the South East region.

MPR were instructed because of our long standing expertise in cases of this type. The provisions under which prosecutions are bought against companies and other organisations were created in the CMHCA 2007.

Under section 1 of the CMHA 2007 the offence is created that:

An organisation to which this section applies is guilty of an offence if the way in which its activities are managed or organised -

• causes a person’s death; and
• amounts to a gross breach of a relevant duty of care owed by the organisation to the deceased.

An organisation is guilty of an offence only if the way in which its activities are managed or organised by its senior management is a substantial element in the breach referred to in subsection (1).

This offence is indictable only and on conviction the judge may impose an unlimited fine (section 1(6)).

Section 18 states that an individual cannot be indicted for aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring the commission of this offence.  However an individual may still be prosecuted for common law gross negligence manslaughter.

The Prosecution will need to prove:

• the defendant is a qualifying organisation;
• the organisation causes a person’s death;
• there was a relevant duty of care owed by the organisation to the deceased;
• there was a gross breach of that duty;
• a substantial element of that breach was in the way those activities were managed or organisedby senior management; and
• the defendant must not fall within one of the exemptions for prosecution under the Act.