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Corporate Manslaughter First Prosecution Announced

All USRs and Health & Safety profeesionals will be looking to the Courts on 17th June whne the first prosecutiuon for copreorate manslaughter gets under way.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) today (23rd April) announced it is bringing the first ever charge under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.

In the first application of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, the Crown Prosecution Service has today authorised a charge of corporate manslaughter against Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings Ltd in relation to the death of Alexander Wright on 5 September 2008.

Mr Wright, who was employed by Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings as a junior geologist, was taking soil samples from inside a pit which had been excavated as part of a site survey when the sides of the pit collapsed crushing him.

Peter Eaton, a director of the company has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter and with an offence contrary to Section 37, Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.  Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings Ltd has also been charged with failing to discharge a duty contrary to Section 33, Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

Kate Leonard, reviewing lawyer, CPS Special Crime Division, explained:

"Under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 an organisation is guilty of corporate manslaughter if the way in which its activities are managed or organised causes a death and amounts to a gross breach of a duty of care to the person who died.  A substantial part of the breach must have been in the way activities were organised by senior management. I have concluded that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction for this offence."

Mr Eaton will appear at Stroud Magistrates' Court on 17 June.  He faces charges both as an individual and on behalf of the company.

Source: CPS



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