Posted By Robert K Lewis The message from Lawrence linked from this website homepage raises some concerns from my point of view - although many know I am a natural pedant. The draft bill states that a company is guilty of an offence if the management of its activities "amounts to a gross breach of a duty of care" - Draft reg 1 Draft reg 3(1) Defines gross breach as conduct "falling far below what can be reasonably expected". This to me is not fairly represented by the IOSH statement which says "If a company fell below the standards of health and safety reasonably expected and someone was killed as a result of this" The statement under Lawrence's name is implying that simple breaches leading to death are Corp. Manslaughter offences - This is not what the proposed legislation states. The test is far higher than "reasonably expected". As a professional institution we need to ensure that public statements are technically and factually correct or we will die on our own swords so to speak. A second issue strikes me concerning the proposals which does not seem to be the subject of much discussion. Draft reg 6 allows for Remediation orders, issued by the court. In addition to the correction of the breach the order may include other matters, determined by the judge, which appear to have resulted from the breach and which may have been a cause of death. This provides a wide scope of court action and opens the vision of some major lawyer involvement in negotiating the orders - Thoughts? Bob

Posted By Dave Daniel What concerns me is the almost obsessive fixation on finding a way to convict businesses and Directors, (along with every other enforcement agency it seems) which seems to overlook the question of guilt or innocence, and indeed IOSH statements by Lawrence's predecessor's have even overlooked the existence of S36 and 37 of good old HASAWA, which I believe still offer better punitive control than any Corporate Killing bill. As a Company Director myself I am pleased that the current proposal is based on clear causation link between the decision of a Director and the death, whereas, dangerously, previous offerings proposed that even "contributing" to the death was enough. In 30 years of work, I have yet to meet any Director who deliberately set out to cause a death by his actions. This country has to recognise that Directors are not ogres but hard working people who assume highly pressured roles and make decisions and sometimes human mistakes and oversights. Living as I do only 5 miles from the site of Matrix Churchill, where the "supergun" fiasco nearly put the Directors in jail for treason because the Government did not want to admit they were working with MI5 and tried to exclude evidence from their trial, I have little faith in the legal system to act fairly where politics is so high on the agenda. Perhaps those who shout the loudest would not be so noisy if they themselves were in the firing line..... D R Daniel BSc MIOSH, RSP Director

Posted By Dave Daniel You are quite right. One of the concerns I commented on directly to the proposers and to IOSH is that this is ill-defined, and if I read some of the more vociferous advocates correctly they seem to think this can include for example a local supervisor who is "in charge" of a very small area taking an action which results in the whole corporation being guilty. Following on that logic perhaps it is one man - let us say a police officer who chooses to drive at 169mph to "test" his car and skills on the M54 motorway at night - who could result in a whole organisation being prosecuted. This seems far away from the original concept of corporate manslaughter I do not think that the courts would necessarily take this view but it is another concern as the advocates trample on every principle of natural justice to try and have someone... perhaps anyone .. prosecuted. One of my main concerns is that there appears to have been no serious analysis of the implications of the consequences of the proposals before proclaiming support, and ther appears to have been little serious debate with IOSH members about this although I must confess I rarely attend Branch meetings - I'm just too busy. Having had 25 years of analysing new laws I still find it depressing that so few others actually sit down and work out the implications and decide whether they like the results or not, rather than just passively accepting or supporting what is doled up.

Posted By Dave Daniel Most IOSH members are employees. I wonder how many have asked their own directors if they are happy with the prospect of being blamed if someone is killed? Personally I believe the Corporate Manslaughter is increasingly looking like an idea without a home. Between Gross Negligence Manslaughter and HASAWA there is decreasingly little space for any new penalty to sit. I doubt that any lawyer will ever prove that any director or "real" senior manager ever took a decision which directly and knowingly caused a death.... (outside of the Police Force's Anti-Terrorist policy branch that is! - and even there I'm not sure it would -) Ladbroke Grove, the Herald disaster etc. would not qualify, so what's left? Perhaps the real answer is a law about public transport, since this is where all the cited cases have happened.

Posted By Dave Daniel I disagree with this sentiment. There is an underlying and public sentiment that just because Directors are (thought to be) rich, then it's all right to prosecute them more than anyone else. When companies are successful Directors may enjoy good financial returns and this is open to any of us - anyone can start their own business - It is very hard, very stressful and requires considerable determination. That's why few do it. The down side is that when things fail you might risk and lose all. I see no mention of Directors putting their houses up as security with the bank etc. as one of my friends had to do. Being thought to be wealthy is not yet a crime within the UK as far as I know but then I have never been PC. Why should directors have to accept a greater risk of penalisation when their efforts have provided the job which pays your wages?

Posted By J Knight Dave, I never said that Directors shouldn't be rewarded for the performance of their companies, all I said was that they have to be prepared to accept the consequences of their acts or ommissions. If times are good, they get a reward, because they claim the credit. If they can claim credit for good performance they have to accept brickbats for failures. I'm sorry you saw more in my comments than I intended, John

Posted By J Knight Well said Lawrence; your last sentence sums up my position beautifully, John