Last week, a judge fined Barrow-in-Furness BC over health and safety failures after an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in 2002. Jamie Hailstone looks at the implications of new corporate manslaughter laws Local authorities throughout the country are counting the cost of last week’s corporate manslaughter case involving Barrow-in-Furness BC. The case at Preston Crown Court was brought after seven people died, following an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease at a council arts centre in summer 2002. Judge Stanley Burnton fined the council £125,000 after it admitted breaching health and safety laws, and ordered the authority to pay £90,000 costs. The council’s head of design services, Gillian Beckingham, 48, was cleared of causing the deaths of seven people, but was convicted of a breach of health and safety law. She was fined £15,000 after failing to ensure the air-conditioning unit at the centre was properly maintained. The judge said he would have fined Barrow more than £1m if it had been a company. Not only could last week’s judgement have wide-reaching implications for councils, but new legislation going before parliament in the autumn could mean health and safety could become the number one priority for local authorities. The Government published the new Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill last month. Under the new Bill, an organisation, such as a council, will be guilty of the new offence if someone has been killed as a result of the gross failure of senior managers. If an organisation is found guilty of corporate manslaughter, the penalty will be an unlimited fine. The courts will also have the power, under the new legislation, to impose remedial orders which require the organisation to address the cause of the death. ‘For too long, the law has made it extremely difficult to bring to justice large companies whose management failure has resulted in death,’ says home office minister, Gerry Sutcliffe. Nick Dobson, head of local government at law firm Pinsent Masons, explains: ‘The current law has been around since 1968, following a decision about spilt yoghurt in a Tesco supermarket.’ He says that under the current law, an organisation can only be tried for corporate manslaughter if an individual high enough in the chain of command can be identified as being responsible as ‘the mind or will of the company’. According to Mr Dobson, decisions made at Crown Court do not have the same weight in creating judicial precedence as rulings at High Court level. But, looking at the Barrow BC decision, he says: ‘Although the judge indicated the fine was kept modest, the case will still shiver the timbers of many local government directors who are responsible for health and safety. ‘It’s a mind concentrator. Managers will have to make sure they have got proper procedures in place and that everyone has carried out their risk management.’ Stephen Matthew, a partner in the public sector team at Nabarro Nathanson, says the new legislation will ‘address a current deficiency in the law’ when it comes to identifying responsible individuals. ‘What the Bill is trying to do is address and look at failings across senior management. So, there’s a focus on management failings. It’s difficult to point the finger at one person. It’s almost impossible, particularly in the case of local authorities. ‘It does mean councils have to focus their attention on this issue. They have to make sure there is a clear allocation of responsibility for health and safety.’ In terms of the comments made by Mr Justice Stanley Burnton that he would have fined Barrow BC more than £1m if it had been a company, Mr Matthew says: ‘One could argue the only way to get the electorate to sit up and take notice of this issue is through the ballot box. So, why make an exception on these grounds? ‘If you fine a company, you will arguably also hit people who are innocent bystanders – the shareholders.’ n
