Hello

I've just recently started work for a holiday lettings broker, we don’t own any of the properties we just promote and manage the holiday bookings for each of the properties. One area I’ve been looking into is our duty of care towards the customers, the people who book the holidays. I understand that the property owners have the legal responsibilities with regards to all the necessary H&S legislation attributed to renting out a holiday property and I am putting systems in place to assist with that, my question is could the company i work for get prosecuted under the Corporate Manslaughter & Corporate Homicide Act 2007 along with the property owner if failings where identified in our management system’s and it was deemed a substantial element in any gross breach of duty of care to members of the public, if in the unfortunate circumstance  a customer died whilst  at a holiday home due to carbon monoxide poisoning through poor maintenance of gas fixtures & fittings for example and no adequate maintenance systems were in place. This is just of course a worst case scenario i just would like hear our thoughts and to see if ive interpreted the Act correctly? see paragraph below.

Under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 an offence will be committed where failings by an organisation's senior management are a substantial element in any gross breach of the duty of care owed to the organisation's employees or members of the public, which results in death. The maximum penalty is an unlimited fine and the court can additionally make a publicity order requiring the organisation to publish details of its conviction and fine.

In considering the liability of an  organisation under the Act, a jury must consider any breaches of health and safety legislation and may have regard to any health and safety guidance. In addition to other health and safety guidance, this guidance could be a relevant consideration for a jury depending on the circumstances of the particular case.

Edited by user 08 January 2017 20:03:06(UTC)  | Reason: no reason