RoSPA Press Office : Press Release

May 19 , 2006
“BE PREPARED” FOR CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER LAW

The implications of impending changes in the law of manslaughter for health and safety management will be examined at a high-level conference in London on July 6.

Staged at the CBI Conference Centre by Symposium Events and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, it will brief businesses and organisations on the possible impact of the new legislation. The Home Office is expected to introduce its new bill by the end of the current parliamentary session in July.

A list of top speakers at the conference will show how businesses can ensure that they have effective board-level leadership of health and safety management in place to prevent work-related deaths and subsequent prosecution. Among the speakers will be Roger Bibbings, RoSPA Occupational Safety Adviser.

He said: “The deficiencies in the current law that prevent many organisations from being successfully prosecuted for corporate killing need to be rectified. It is blatantly unfair that, following preventable deaths at work, directors of small businesses can be prosecuted for manslaughter while large companies can, in effect, only be prosecuted under health and safety law.

“On the other hand, the law on corporate manslaughter needs to be framed in a sensible way so that it complements the duties of both organisations and individuals under the Health and Safety at Work Act. Prevention not vengeance should be the guiding principle.

“RoSPA supports the work being undertaken by the Health and Safety Commission to enhance its guidance on the duties of directors. Those who follow this need have nothing to fear.

“The charge of corporate manslaughter, which is aimed at organisations, not their directors, needs to be reserved for cases where behaviour has fallen far below what might be reasonably expected.”

Other speakers include: Errol Taylor, RoSPA Acting Chief Executive; Gerard Forlin, a barrister and leading expert on regulatory crime; Suzannah Chirnside, Criminal Law Policy Unit, Home Office; Jonathan Russell, Enforcement Policy Branch, Health and Safety Executive; Sean Elson, solicitor, Kennedys; Kelly Connor, author of To Cause a Death; Graham Feest, Secretary, Association of Industrial Road Safety Officers; David Leckie, Partner, Maclay Murray & Spens; Carolyn Halpin, Vice-chair, Association of Local Authority Risk Managers; Patricia Peter, Head of Corporate Governance, Institute of Directors; and Maggie Robbins, UK Director, Centre for Corporate Accountability (CCA).

For more information contact RoSPA events on 0121 248 2120.