Posted By JayneAnne Ridgway If a serious accident occured at work (nobody died) and the HSE came on site and investigated the accident. How soon would the employer know if they were going to be prosecuted for breaches of health and safety and if they were going to be prosecuted, does the HSE have to submit a prosecution within a time period? Many thanks

Posted By maddog RM 15 months after a fatality the HSE have now started to interview key witnesses. No sign of any prosecution. Please also note that in a recent newspaper article it stated that you have a 10% chance of being prosecuted today compared to 48% ten years ago.

Posted By Robert K Lewis CFT It actually is my general experience for 12 months but I do know of up to 4 years without much effort. I think sometimes they are are wishing something would go away. My pet hobby horse at the moment though is whether employers will be able to claim inadvertence, aka a Peter Hain, as a reason for being not guilty of an offence even if it is strict in its meaning. Certainly it seems the list of politicians is growing who believe they have not committed an offence because they did not intend to do so and had done what they thought was sufficient to ensure that they did not do so. Even an apology it seems is meant to excuse the committing of the offence. They clearly do not understand that a straight "must" means that there is no excuse if it does not happen. These are the people creating these offences - Oh dear me!! Back to the point though the net effect is that no real time bar exists for prosecution as long as the investigation is ongoing or being actively assessed. Bob

Posted By John Allen Unless there has been a recent change in the law my understanding is that the following applies. For summary offences then proceedings must be put before the court within six months of the date of the alleged offence. If not the court can hold the offence to be time-barred. Where an offence comes to the knowledge of the Enforcing authority at a later date then this later date can be used to "start the clock". For an offence under solemn legal proceedings, (indictment)there is no time limit. There used to be a rule within the HSE that for summary offences the case should be laid before the court or the PF within two months of the date of the alleged offence; perhaps someone who has been an inspector more recently than me can confirm if this is still the case.

Posted By db In the case of a fatality, as with maddog's, the HSE investigate with the police and the police have primacy. So although HSE would be involved in any investigation, inspectors wouldn't be taking statements until the investigation was handed over. Hence the wait - In the case of the thread of the post where there was no accident it was probably due to the workload of the inspector. All it takes is for one fatal and a few serious accidents to tie an inspector up for months, if not years but the accident, if chosen for investigation will still have to be done. However, with no accident and a 15 month wait you are more likely to have notices or advice based on the risk gap analysis they carry out. Unless there are other factors, like previous advice, poor h&s record. Look at section 4 and 5 of http://www.hse.gov.uk/enforce/emm.pdf If that's the case, a good defence might be that if it was that serious why didn't HSE take action before.... but there is no time limit and that abuse of process argument would need to be considered by the magistrates or judge.

Posted By ITK John is almost right, the time frame for proceedings is 6 months for summary only cases. In triable either way proceedings must be within a "reasonable time" under the European Convention on Human Rights . Lengthy delays could be deemed abuse of process by the courts which could lead the case being thrown out. ITK

Posted By Tabs Sorry, I was talking of fatalities ... the thread has kind of widened. Look here for good information on the HSE site: http://www.hse.gov.uk/en...rt/magistrates/intro.htm

Posted By Robert K Lewis It should have been accounted for in the due diligence process. If it was not done properly with respect to H&S these are the consequences. Perhaps it would have been better to shave a couple of million off the price to create a bonus pot for the re-constituted company if any action was taken. Unfortunately this is a fact of life in many acquisitions. The moral is - ensure proper H, S & E due diligence is properly undertaken. Bob