http://www.hse.gov.uk/pr...egen&cr=11/04-oct-10 http://www.hse.gov.uk/pr...egen&cr=10/04-oct-10 I have just this morning received the HSE e-bulletin and the above were next to each other - in one article a company is fined £17500 following the death of an employee in a lathe, then the next article tells of a company being fined £16000 when an employees finger and thumb were severed clearing a blockage. The fatality was a Crown Court case and the other in the magistrates court - so when you look at it the magistrates in fact have imposed a greater penalty according to their powers Of course there are mitigating and incriminating factors in both cases - action taken, size of company (multi-national and a smaller engineering company), controls already in place etc etc but for all our critics who will never read beyond the headlines it appears on the surface unjust.

I think we would all agree that fines are too low but at the same time I don't think we can comment on comparing the fines set in these or other cases. Fines are not just dependent on the severity of outcome but the severity of breach. So someone could die but actually the breacjh was quite minor and yet someone can have a more minor injury and yet the breach was much greater and systemic. Also the courts take into acooutn things like turnover. The reason that enforcers dont prosecute for more breaches is that everyone is in breach of the law and so they would never be out of court. They use discretion (and supposedly the EMM) to decide which warrant advice, which warrant enforcement notices and which require prosecution. The eblief is that it is more effective to work with companies than just prosecute them. Profile cases are used to send out a message to other similar companies though. The reason that employees rarely get prosecuted is becuase there are nearly always systemic failings in management. I do agree that senior managers should be prosecuted for that more though. I can honestly say that only one of the companies I ever prosecuted did not already realise the errror of their ways. So in that sense the prosecution did nothing more than slap their wrists when really they didn;t need it as they had already kicked themselves. Prosecution isn't the answer in my opinion, education is. Prosecution should be saved for the people and companies who refuse to be educated.

There are a very few employers who deliberately flout the laws the make a profit (that is the one case I prosecuted that deserved it). To be fair it is not that most companies don't know or understand the law more that things slip through the net. We're all human and we all miss things, are unaware of things, just plain don't think it is an issue. It's easy to be critical of others when they get it wrong but none of us are watertight, I guarantee it. So most of the prosecutions that I did were based on just that - oversights. But the expectation is to prosecute on the basis of a serious injury occuring. So to me I don't think prosecuting those companies is effective. The shock of the accident itself (and the reality is most companies get prosecuted only once an accident has occured) is usually enough punishment. It often hits them hard, especially in tight knit companies. What does a court case achieve more than that? The exception is large companies where there is no community and the bosses are removed from the reality of the shop floor so to speak. There I think the directors themselves need to be held more to account. Now that would hit where it should. Anyway, that strays form the point Ray. Fines cannot be compared. There are too many variables.

I'm not saying that we can move away from prosecution as it is what the public expects. I am saying with all the prosecutions I took there was only one that actually achieved anything by going through the process. The accident itself had achieved much more impact on the company. So therefore to me the prosecution was a waste of time but nevertheless we would be unable to get away from such a thing in our society as society expects us to punish in such circumstances. Just becuase it has to happen doesn't mean it is effective in all cases. The same could be applied to other situations such as manslaughter through defence and so called mercy killings. Some may argue that they don't warrant prosecution even though they technically broke the law. I was just raising what I think is an interesting point. I don't know what the alternative is though.

The magistrates court fines are at the link below. Pages 180 to 183b gives details! http://www.sentencingcou...g_update_1__2__3_web.pdf