Posted By peter gotch First of two defendants has been found guilty on 4 counts of manslaughter. See today's BBC News site. Regards, Peter

Posted By Paul Devlin Following on from my last post it will be interesting to see what the judicial system think is a fair and just punishment for 4 deaths. The average fine is about £18,000 a life!!!!!

Posted By Max Bancroft Here's a question for us to ponder: Due to lack of identification of a "controlling mind", it is not possible to bring culpable homicide/manslaughter charges against anybody other than the director of a small, simple company. In the latter case, there have been such prosecutions and they were successful (the Lyme Bay case being one, this sounds like another). The theory goes that company directors of larger companies, knowing that the company could be prosecuted for manslaughter/homicide and that they themselves might also be liable, will, in the future, take greater care over health and safety. Is there any evidence to show that small companies and their directors, who already face the prospect of successful manslaughter/homicide prosecution, have a better safety record than large companies? Do they take more care over H&S, do they carry out suitable and sufficient rosk assessments? Do they have a a better record in terms of deaths per 100,000 workers? I haven't done any serious research - all I could find was the HSE accident statistics for 2004/2005. From which I find that about half all work related deaths occurred in construction, agriculture, forestry and fishing which are sectors where small companies abound. If there is no evidence, what is the benefit in terms of improving H&S and why are people putting such an effort into getting a new law passed which will probably have no effect?

Posted By Max Bancroft Bob - you have hit on one aspect of this debate. When the coalmines and the railways were under public ownership there didn't seem to be the same idea that, following an accident involving fatalities, the company and/or individuals within it "had" to be charged with manslaughter/culpable homicide. Taking the railways as an example, can anyone out there tell us if more/less workers/members of the public have been killed per 1,000,000 passenger miles per year?

Posted By Gilly Margrave Second defendant has now also been found guilty. Sentencing due later today. Gilly

Posted By Raymond Rapp Max et al Railway deaths do seem to have a greater prominence than other industries and there are number of reasons for that. That said, accident and incident trends have been gradually decreasing over the last couple of decades or so. For example, according to HSE statistics from a peak of 57 multiple fatality incidents in 1975, 40-1988, 33-1999/00 and 10-2004. The above statistics clearly show that fatal incidents on the railway are on the decrease, although they can vary quite dramatically from year to year. Adding other stats such as broken and buckled rails, derailments etc aslo confirm a downward trend. I suspect the Tebay prosecution has more to do with an easy target than the fact it was a railway incident. Like many others I would like to see a Corporate Manslaughter law that brings offenders to account whatever the industry or size of the organisation. Regards Ray

Posted By Max Bancroft John - would you explain further you comment about the law being changed so that work related deaths are classified as suicide please?

Posted By Paul Devlin I think the gentleman was being facetious in the suicide part of the statement guys. I understand his anger as well. Going back to a point made about "Railway Charges" I didn't mean to infer that I wanted only the "b*******" involved in the rail industry brought to book for manslaughter but since the post was about the Tebay incident then that was why railways are singled out for this debate. The point made about road deaths is well made on the whole but most road deaths are due to driver error,accidents, etc with in the most part minimal impact fatality wise on an individual accident by accident basis. The majority of the accidents in the rail sector have been caused by negligable practices and in most cases results in multiple fatalities so it is an unfair comparison to make. Any death which is preventable is unacceptable I'm sure you will all agree and I tend to side with the camp that thinks that any new law wont make "large" company directors any more liable in the event of their company causing needless deaths. As stated earlier it isnt stopping small companies from cutting costs etc to the detriment of H&S. Any views as to a better way of policing H&S??

Posted By Bob Shillabeer Oh yes the new corporate killing law will not result in any managing director going to jail, this will be achieved under current law if there is enough evidence to prove the case. The new law will result in the company being fined as it is impossible to send a corporate body to jail. It's worth reading the proposed bill it makes very interesting reading.

Posted By Max Bancroft Those of you south of the Border should be aware that the Scottish Executive are considering proposals to do with corporate killing which could be a bit different from those currently proposed for England and Wales. However, as somebody has pointed out, jail sentences for individuals are an option under the HASAW Act - it's just that the prosecutors have never really gone and used its provisions to the maximum. So let's not kid ourselves that proposed corporate manslaughter law will make any serious difference. The dodgy owners of an uninsured HGV with a bypassed tacho will continue to flout the law.