Rank: Super forum user 
|
Look at thse two cases from the current HSE website. As the HSE publish thse should they not complete our undestanding by giving some explanation as tho the different levels of seriousness?
Case a
The owner of a Norfolk aggregate site has been prosecuted for failing to complete a suitable and sufficient risk assessment for moving rail wagons without a locomotive.
King's Lynn Magistrates' Court heard today (6 December) that during a site visit the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) identified that although a risk assessment had been completed, it was unclear and failed to address all the hazards associated with the activity.
The owner was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £10,203 in costs after admitting breaching Regulation 3(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
Case b
A business owner in Hull has been prosecuted after an employee fell nearly four metres while painting the top of a water storage tank and shattered his left leg.
The 58 year-old decorator, from north-west Hull, will never be able to go back to his lifetime trade or any other construction-related work
Beverley Magistrates heard today (5 Dec) that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) brought the prosecution against CM for safety failings after investigating the incident. HSE found there was no protection in place along the sides of the tanks to prevent a fall.
The court was told Mr M had provided inadequate access equipment for the job and had instructed the two men to use it. He had then seen both his employees working in a clearly unsafe manner, but had failed to take any steps to put effective safety measures in place to prevent them from falling.
CM, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 by virtue of his neglect as an individual director. He was fined £2,500 and ordered to pay £1,800 in costs.
After the hearing, HSE Inspector David Bradley said:
"This was a serious incident in which a worker sustained life-changing injuries
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Super forum user 
|
If you mean (sorry if you don't) why is one offence worth £x and the other worth £y - It's relative to size/turnover etc (or should be) and so although they look disproportionate the overall effect will be similar to the business as a whole.
This is true of 'identical' offences committed by two different companies - your example is not quite as straight forward as this plus we also do not fully know the mitigating/aggravating circumstances.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Super forum user 
|
The sentence is decided by the court not the HSE. How a judge/magistrate applies the guidelines is upto him. The HSE don’t necessarily know how a judge comes up with a particular sentence.
When choosing a sentence they do take into account the ability of the ‘person’ to pay any fines etc. I said ‘person’ as of course this could be a company as well as an individual.
In the first case the ‘person’ fined was a company with more resources to pay a fine. I suppose that a company has more responsibility than an individual so it makes more sense to go for the organisation.
Although the fine on the individual was smaller, the impact of even such a fine can be dramatic. That person now has a criminal record, which they may have to declare in the future. Personally I think that they should use director disqualification orders more, which I would suggest as a suitable punishment for someone in charge of a business that breaches H&S law.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Super forum user
|
I'd like to think most on here (including the OP) understand that fines are proportionate to ability to pay with small company received a smaller fine than a large company and an individual getting a smaller fine than a company (unless they are considerably wealthy, I guess).
What I think the OP is interested in, and I am too, is why in 1 instance a company was prosecuted and in another an individual. This must be case dependant but I'd be interested to know of any guidelines in deciding "who to go after".
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Super forum user
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Forum user
|
I imagine sensitivites come into it as well - there was a fatal accident at an aggregates rail facility in Norfolk in the recent past.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Super forum user 
|
I suspect that in Case A we may not know all the facts. The HSE rarely prosecute for an inadequate risk assessment alone, there must have been other reasons lurking in the background. Normally this would be no more than an unofficial warning, at worst an EN.
As another has already mentioned, the Judge must ensure that the fine is proportionate to means to pay regardless of whether it is an individual or a company. Still, a fine of £4,300 is not an awful lot. I guess the director was lucky, had the IP been killed it could have been a manslaughter charge.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Forum user
|
These cases make it even more eyewatering that the Pembrokeshire zoo was fined £100,000, plus a fine of one of the directors (not sure of details) for 'failure to follow tree management guidance', resulting from an investigation following the serious injury of a mother and child when a tree toppled.
It was acknowledged that the particular tree which fell and caused injury, had a defect unlikely to have been recognised, and was therefore not part of the case. It was the lack of application of what the HSE consider to be standards for tree management which formed the case.
At any level, size and ability to pay, degree of mitigation, this is a stunningly high fine. Good question - why the disparity?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Super forum user
|
I'm sure I read about a case the other week which saw a fine of just £0.01 because the comapny was in receivership? Out of interest how does compensation to the injured party compare to fines dished out and who pays them? Intersting comment on this link: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pr...nn-w-carillionfebrey.htm whereby a company was fined £85 after going into liquidation, but the judge said he would have fined them £250,000 before it became insolvent.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Super forum user
|
grim72 wrote:I'm sure I read about a case the other week which saw a fine of just £0.01 because the comapny was in receivership? Out of interest how does compensation to the injured party compare to fines dished out and who pays them? Intersting comment on this link: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pr...nn-w-carillionfebrey.htm whereby a company was fined £85 after going into liquidation, but the judge said he would have fined them £250,000 before it became insolvent. Compensation, which is what you get from a civil case is basically intended to cover any loses an individual suffers from either negligence or breach of statutory duty. So the worse the loss the more money they get. This can include not just actual financial losses (loss of earnings, medical bills etc) but can also include more intangible things such as pain and suffering and ‘loss of amenity’. There is no set sums but guidance exists and has to be applied to the case in question. Most of this cases (90 %?) don’t go to court and the lawyers and insurers using there own guidance tables to work out the appropriate levels of compensation. There should not be any element of punishment in the issue of the compensation, so how bad the breach or failure was, should not be a factor in the level of damages, just the level of the injury caused. (in the US courts often add a punitive element to damages which can double the amount of money paid out). I have read somewhere that the typical compensation paid out for a negligence claim in the past few years is about £10 000 but much higher figures (millions) have been paid out.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Super forum user
|
Thanks AK. It was something that often crossed my mind when I read about the fines imposed on companies/individuals following a prosecution and wondered if the fine was awarded to the affected person. Where do the fines go to then?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rank: Super forum user
|
grim72 wrote:Thanks AK. It was something that often crossed my mind when I read about the fines imposed on companies/individuals following a prosecution and wondered if the fine was awarded to the affected person. Where do the fines go to then? The Consolidated Fund which is the big pile of money under George Osborne's bed that pays for everything. It mostly comes from taxes that we pay and is spent on things like my salary (a teeny weeny part I must say)
|
|
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum.
You cannot reply to topics in this forum.
You cannot delete your posts in this forum.
You cannot edit your posts in this forum.
You cannot create polls in this forum.
You cannot vote in polls in this forum.