The commission continued and analysed the Herald of Free Enterprise tragedy highlighting that the jury at the inquest returned verdicts of unlawful killing in 187 cases and the DPP launched prosecutions against the companies and seven individuals. No convictions were made by the courts, even though British Rail had failed to recognise a severe signalling problem; leading to the death of 35 people, with a further 500 being injured. The trial collapsed when Turner J directed the jury to acquit the company and the five most senior individual defendants, The commission said that the principal ground for the decision in relation to the case against the company was that, in order to convict the company of manslaughter, individual defendants who could be identified with the company would have themselves to be guilty of manslaughter; since there was on the facts insufficient evidence to convict any such individual defendant, the case against company also had to fail.. Act 1974, but they were not prosecuted for manslaughter. The management practice has got to be something that can be directly linked to the deaths which occurred. Tesco appealed to the divisional courts where the conviction was upheld before appealing to the House of Lords. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Daniels S, Corporate Manslaughter in the Maritime and Aviation Industries (2016), Bastable G, Legislative Comment: Making a Killing, European Lawyer (2008), Warburton C, Corporate manslaughter: in deep water, Health & Safety at Work (September 2017), Crown Prosecution Service Corporate Manslaughter (Legal Guidance, Violent Crime) < https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/corporate-manslaughter> Accessed 2nd March 2018, Law Commission, Legislating The Criminal Code, Involuntary Manslaughter (Law Com 237, 1996), Ministry of Justice, Understanding the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, https://web.archive.org/web/20071025031113/http://www.justice.gov.uk/docs/manslaughterhomicideact07.pdf, Draft Corporate Manslaughter Bill, First Joint Report of Session 20052006, Volume 1: Report, HC540-I (2005), Sentencing Council, Health and Safety Offences, Corporate Manslaughter and Food Safety and Hygiene Offences Definitive Guideline (2015), Benjamin Kentish, Grenfell Tower Fire Caused by faulty fridge on fourth floor, reports suggest, The Independent, 16 June 2017; accessed 25th February 2018, Kevin Rawlinson, Harriet Sherwood and Vikram Dodd Grenfell Tower final death toll: police say 71 lives lost as result of fire The Guardian, 16th November 2017 < https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/nov/16/grenfell-tower-final-death-toll-police-say-71-people-died-in-fire> accessed 25th February 2018, Paul Gallagher, Grenfell Tower inquiry: My job is to get to the truth, chairman says, iNews, September 14th 2017 < https://inews.co.uk/news/grenfell-tower-public-inquiry-opening-hearing/> accessed 25th February 2018, Jonathan Grimes, Impact of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, Thomson Reuters Practical Law, < https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/Document/I1fdf7cdc590011e598dc8b09b4f043e0/View/FullText.html?comp=pluk&transitionType=SearchItem&contextData=(sc.Search)&OWSessionId=NA&skipAnonymous=true&firstPage=true> accessed February 25th 2018, Centre for Corporate Accountability, Manslaughter Cases Convictions of Companies, Directors etc. Rescue was hampered because the railway was in a cutting, with a metal fence at the top and a wall at the bottom of a wooded slope. The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 is based upon a Law Commission report published as long ago as 1996 ( Legislating the Criminal Code Involuntary Manslaughter Law Com No. The Act was intended to make it easier to convict organisations (particularly large ones) when their gross negligence leads to death. The requirement for a duty of care to be found also drew criticism because of what Gobert describes as its dubious relevance, as it is fairly obvious that companies ought not to kill people in ordinary circumstances. However, the act has only been in force for two years consequently, the courts may find it easier to interpret in the future leading to further convictions of corporate manslaughter. The status of having a separate legal personality also means the newly established corporation will have various characteristics of a natural person. British Rail may face a charge of corporate manslaughter after the official report into the Clapham rail crash. It has a brain and nerve centre which controls what it does. Finally, the remedies currently available may not be sufficient to satisfy those seeking justice. Safety at Work etc. the Clapham rail crash and the Herald of Free Enterprise tragedy as examples of situations in which inquiries had "found . Others are directors and managers who represent the directing mind and will of the company, and control what it does. [24], Testing was mandated on British Rail signalling work[25] and the hours of work of employees involved in safety-critical work was limited. Only a few countries, however, have some kind of law to punish the offenders. He continues that To require proof of a duty of care simply provides defendants with another avenue for deflecting the trial from its main objective of determining the role of the organisation in the resulting death and detouring it on to a time-consuming and likely contentious dispute on an issue of dubious relevance. However, despite the contention by Gobert and others that this requirement would be a distraction, Roper states (10 years after the inception of the act) that the concept hasnt been a particular issue in any of the cases to date., It is argued that this due to the fact that almost all of the prosecuted cases have involved the death of employees of the defendant, a well-established duty. ) Officers investigating the death of a man in Lambeth have charged a man with murder. However, issues with duty have not seemed to be a particular problem ten years after enactment, however the law will face a more strenuous test in regard to the Grenfell Incident. Explaining its decision. At 8.13am on 12 December 1988, three trains collided in south London in one of the UK's worst rail disasters. The disaster caused the death of 51 passengers. The act says: A relevant duty of care, in relation to an organisation, means any of the following duties owed by it under the law of negligence and goes on to list a number of different duties. They should have made sure adequate and safe signalling was in place to prevent any danger to the passengers onboard their trains. SHE TRAVELLED THE WORLD TO FIND HERSELF . The courts found that the mens rea, the guilty mind, of the managing director of the company was attributable to the company. Joseph Stoddart, manager of the St Alban's centre in Lyme Regis, was found not guilty of the same charges after the jury failed to reach a verdict. On the other hand, the act has allowed courts the power to make companies responsible in their own rights for a death caused by bad management practice or management failure. It was against this backdrop that the Law Commission proposed new legislation to reform the offence of Corporate Manslaughter which was enacted in The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.. [32] A year later, a report into a collision at London Waterloo highlighted similar circumstances, saying that "some of the lessons from the 1988 Clapham Junction accident are fading from the railway industry's collective memory". Also, the act is still linked to the identification doctrine in some respect due to the fact that the company can only be found guilty if the senior management has played a significant part in the management failure which consequently caused the death. The skipper of the Bowbelle, the boat which caused the capsizing of the Marchioness, was found not guilty of failing to keep an accurate look-out. I 1996, the collision was cited by the Law Commission as reason for new law on manslaughter, resulting in the Corporate Manslaughter Act 2007 Describe the duty of care for corporate manslaughter Clarkson CMV, Corporate Manslaughter: yet more Government proposals, Criminal Law Review no 677, (2005). The fact that there had been only two convictions exposed "the absurdity of the law of corporate manslaughter as it presently stands," he has said. Search. Academics have suggested that these requirements serve to perpetuate some of the stumbling blocks that hindered prosecutions under the old common law. Identifying principal aims of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. . Dedan Simmons, 39 (09.04.83), of Clapham Road, SW9, was charged on Thursday, 2 March. Angelos Tzortzinis for The New York . A total of 35 people died in the collision, while 484 were injured.[1]. This principle made it difficult for the courts to make a conviction due to the fact that it stated only an individual can be responsible for such a serious offence. On the face of the act, the net had been widened by eschewing the Crowns immunity in certain circumstances and removing the need to identify the directing mind and will of a company. It is a very complicated offence when the courts are deciding if to make a conviction or not. . Occidental Petroleum Ltd was found to have insufficient safety procedures and maintenance, after an explosion on the oil platform killed 167 of its workers. For any company of any size, protecting the health and safety of employees or members of the public who may be affected by its activities is an essential part of risk management and must be led by the company board. Under the government's proposals, a new test of liability would be the failure of the company to do everything practicable to prevent accidents. Of note is the exemption provided by s6 that there is no relevant duty owed by an organisation in the way in which it responds to emergency circumstances. This is contrary to the position of the Joint Committee who recommend that emergency services should only be liable in cases of the gravest management failings.. A relevant duty of care can be the duty the company owes to its employees, the customers using the service of the company or the duty the company owes as the occupier of its premises. Shortly after 08:10,[2][3] the following train, the 06:30 from Bournemouth, made up of 4REP unit 2003 and 4TC units 8027 and 8015, collided with the Basingstoke train. The act is relatively untested against large companies, with the CAV Aerospace case being the sole successful prosecution of a large company that went to trial and ended in a guilty verdict. Years of delays and neglect have left Greece with a hobbled system. Corporate manslaughter legislation has done very little to prevent deaths attributable to directors intransigence. Management was to ensure that no one was working high levels of overtime,[20] and a senior project manager made responsible for all aspects of the project. Act 1974,[28] there was no prosecution for manslaughter. The driver of a fourth train, coasting with no traction current, saw the other trains and managed to come to a stop behind the other two and the signal that should have protected them, which was showing a yellow "proceed with caution" aspect instead of a red "danger" aspect. The Metropolitan Police Service have told survivors that there are reasonable grounds to suspect Kensington and Chelsea council and the organisation of corporate manslaughter. This was because the company had a separate legal personality from him once it had been formed. A total of 35 people were killed in the collision, while 484 were injured. Their subordinates do not. Reference will need to be made to the statutory provisions of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, recently decided cases and academic opinion, amongst other sources. The 'Hidden Report' into the causes of the collision south of Clapham Junction on December 12 1988, in which 35 people died. The second issue with the duty of care requirement is the intermingling of civil and criminal laws which Lord Justice Kay in the case of R v Wacker suggests have two different aims. Tombs notes that not only is the latter [corporate manslaughter] a more exacting test, but it is one in which the burden of proof falls on the prosecution, not the defendant. Gobert notes that between the Law Commission recommendations and the Home Office consultation document neither contained this requirement. [22] Cab radios, linking driver and signalman, were recommended[23] and to begin installing public address system on existing trains that were not expected to be withdrawn within five years. However, it is questionable to if the act has had any impact on the courts when deciding if to convict a company of corporate manslaughter. Some of the people in the company are mere servants and agents who are nothing more than hands to do the work and cannot be said to represent the mind or will. Prison Custody: The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 DAVID M. DOYLE and SUZANNE SCOTT David M. Doyle is Lecturer in Law, and Suzanne Scott is PhD candidate, . It was caused by a metal fatigue -induced derailment, killing four people and injuring more than 70. A 1978 British Rail Southern Region report had concluded that due to the age of the equipment the re-signalling was needed by 1986. Gobert writes: Further, through its requirement that persons who play a significant role in the formulation and/or implementation of organisation policy be shown to have made a substantial contribution to the corporate offence, the Act threatens to perpetuate the same evidentiary stumbling blocks that frustrated prosecutions under the identification doctrine., In commenting on the draft bill in 2005, Clarkson noted that the requirement of identifying senior managers threatens to open the door to endless argument in court as to whether certain persons do or do not constitute senior managers.. The primary cause of the crash was incorrect wiring work during a stage of the Waterloo Area Resignalling Scheme (WARS); this work left a redundant wire connected at one end, and bare at the other. 4, p. 307. Thursday 25 October 2001 00:00. Indeed, it may be apt to say it was a mere political gesture offered following several high profile disasters such as the Clapham Junction rail crash, Piper Alpha, and the Herald of Free Enterprise. In conclusion, the previous common law that existed made it difficult for companies to be found guilty of corporate manslaughter due to the identification principle. Sir Martin Moore-Bick, heading the Inquiry, indicated he would not shrink from making findings or recommendations on the grounds that criminal charges might be brought. [18] There had been inadequate training, assessment, supervision and testing and, with a lack of understanding of the risks of signalling failure, these were not monitored effectively. The signalling technician who had done the work had not cut back, insulated, nor tied back the loose wire and his work had not been supervised, nor inspected by an independent person as was required. Section 1(4) clarifies that senior management in relation to an organisation, means: The persons who play significant roles in i) The making of decisions about how the whole or a substantial part of its activities are to be managed or organised, or ii) the actual managing or organising of the whole or a substantial part of those activities. In 2003, the Appeal Court in Edinburgh rejected a charge of "culpable homicide" (the Scottish equivalent of the law in England, now known as "corporate homicide") against the gas pipeline firm Transco after the death of a family of four in Larkhall in 1999. This could be classed as gross negligence as it led to the death of 193 people. On the morning of 12 December 1988, a crowded passenger train crashed into the rear of another train that had stopped at a signal, just south of Clapham Junction railway station in London, and subsequently sideswiped an empty train travelling in the opposite direction. Peter Kite, owner of OLL Limited, was jailed for three years, and his company fined 60,000 following the 1993 Lyme Bay canoeing tragedy in which four teenagers died. The family and friends of the deceased may find this offensive and disheartening as no one is being punished for their wrong doing, which led to the death of their relative or friend. The collision was the deadliest rail accident in the country's history. Another complexity comes in the fact that at least 60 different firms have been identified as playing in working on Grenfell over the years which may lead to confusion over exactly which company is responsible for the failures. The case which emphasises the idea and importance of a company being a separate legal personality from the people who created it is Salamon v Salamon & Co Ltd 1897. The Clapham Junction railway crash occurred on the morning of 12 December 1988, when a crowded British Rail passenger train crashed into the rear of another train that had stopped at a signal just south of Clapham Junction railway station in London, England, and subsequently sideswiped an empty train travelling in the opposite direction. The identification theory was a difficult hurdle to jump when bringing manslaughter proceedings against a corporation. I am publishing today, as a Command . The nineteen-eighties and -nineties saw a number of multi- fatality, high profile accidents in the UK, including the Bradford City Fire in 1985; the Herald of Free Enterprise capsize and Kings Cross fire in 1987; the Piper Alpha explosion and the Clapham rail crash in 1988; the Hillsborough disaster and the sinking of the Marchioness in 1989 . Corporate manslaughter, which seeks to make company employees criminally culpable for serious wrongdoing, is notoriously difficult to prove. The Court of Appeal rejected this argument with Lord Justice Kay opining the very same public policy that causes the civil courts to refuse the claim points in a quite different direction in considering a criminal offence. He continues Further the criminal law will not hesitate to act to prevent serious injury or death even when the persons subjected to such injury or death may have consented to or willingly accepted the risk of actual injury or death., Clarkson argues that the danger with the duty of care provision is that the door would be open to similar arguments all over again. Tony Woodcock, then head of investigation and regulation at Stephenson Harwood is quoted in the Law Society Gazette as saying The movement in concepts of the duty of care in tort is notorious and presents difficulties of uncertainty.. This means the corporation now has a personality which is completely separate from the members or directors who carry out the functions of the company. Updated on Apr 13, 2022. The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Cecil Parkinson) With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about the results of the inquiry into the Clapham junction rail disaster of December 1988. Clapham rail disaster Britain's worst rail disaster claimed 35 lives after three trains collided on December 12, 1988. A judge yesterday dismissed manslaughter charges against five rail executives and the engineering group Balfour Beatty over the Hatfield rail disaster, in which four people died in October. deaths in November 1987; the Piper Alpha oil rig fire, 167 deaths in July 1988; the Clapham train crash, 35 deaths in December 1988; the Purley train crash, 5 deaths March 1989 and the sinking of the Marchioness, 51 deaths in August 1989. Therefore the prosecution will need to prove that the breach was a more than minimal contribution to the death (de minimus), This approach has been criticised as the Law Commission had explicitly stated as a recommendation that it should be possible for a management failure on the part of a corporation to be a cause of a persons death even if the immediate cause is the act or omission of an individual., James Gobert argues that The 2007 Act rejects the law commissions conception of causation in favour of the more conventional approach to causation used by the courts which have been a source of controversy and confusion and continues by saying in light of the subsequent decision of the House of Lords in R v. Kennedy (2) indicating that free and voluntary acts of informed adults of sound mind will ordinarily break a chain of causation, the Law Commissions formulation may be needed more than ever if the Act is to have any bite.. Even if the directors are not found guilty, the company can still be found guilty and therefore convicted. One of the most famous corporate manslaughter cases came to trial during the late 1980s, when the Herald of Free Enterprise - a Townsend Thoresen car ferry owned by European Ferries, which later became part of P&O European Ferries - capsized in 1987 off the Belgian coast. Boyle turned towards it; and even as he turned the echo in the inner room changed to a long tingling sound like an electric bell, and then to a faint crash. The crash, just south of Clapham Junction station, killed 35 people and left. 1988 - Worst off-shore 'disaster - Piper Alpha 'Corporate Violence' (Croall, 2011 . Gobert J, The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 Thirteen years in the making but was it worth the wait? The Modern Law Review (2008). In this paper, I will critically evaluate the law relating to corporate manslaughter and consider whether any difficulties may arise if criminal prosecutions ensue by looking at the development of the law, a critical analysis of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (CMCHA 2007) and an application of this analysis the Grenfell Tower fire. The accident exposed major stewardship shortcomings of the privatised national railway infrastructure company Railtrack. "At the moment, the law is, in our view, insufficient to deal with what is culpable conduct," said Mr Calvert-Smith. [5], An initial internal investigation showed that a wiring fault meant that the signal would not show a red danger aspect when the track circuit immediately in front of the signal was occupied. Northumbria Research Link Citation: Arthur, Raymond and Roper, Victoria (2018) Criminal liability for child deaths in custody and the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007. In this case the courts lifted the veil and found that the defendant had formed a company which they saw to be a sham. The Most Interesting Articles, Mysteries and Discoveries. Firstly, in the identification of the particular layer of management that can be described as senior, but also in the fact that those managers must play a significant role in the formulation and/or implementation of organisational policy and their role is a substantial element if the breach of duty that leads to the death of another. The problem, it said, arose through trying to identify the people who were the "embodiment" of the company. In the lens of the Grenfell Tower incident, one of the largest potential problems is determining whether or not the council performs an exclusive public function an argument brought forward by Professor Oliver (see above).