Rank: Super forum user
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Morning all
A curiosity for possible discussion?
Anyone else spotted that the CPS brought charges under s.3 of HASWA in the recent Royal Spice takeaway fatality relating to a failure to control allergens in the kitchen. Case now concluded and in public domain so I'm satisfied that we can post about it. They were also successful in bringing charges of Gross Negligence Manslaughter and presumably under Article 5 of 852 - the relevant food safety legislation.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/07/takeaway-bosses-jailed-death-nut-allergy-sufferer-15-judge-warns/
Custom and practice for the tradittional enforcing authorities has been HASWA for occupational health matters and Food Safety Act etc. for food safety matters but Court clearly accepted that s.3 applies.
On the face of it I can see how the argument can be made - food safety is part of the undertaking. However since severity of outcome/injury isn't part of the Act - the duty applies regardless - then surely HASWA can be said to apply to every food poisoning allegation, or foreign body in food allegation etc.
HSE have long indicated that food safety is not health and safety e.g.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/myth/myth-busting/2012/case075-wastefood.htm
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Rank: Super forum user
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Famously Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act was used to prosecute the Metropolitan Police, in the Jean Charles de Menezes case. Here, in case anyone has forgotten, the police shot an innocent man. The CPS decide that the officers concerned could not be prosecuted for manslaughter but that the police force itself had failed under its responsibilities under Section 3, “To conduct their undertaking in such a way as to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in their employment (were not) exposed to risks to their health or safety.” When Parliament passed the Act back in 1974 it is unlikely they ever conceived of it being used like that. This is similar extension of the Act’s scope. More recently it has been used to deal with work related driving offences as well, as the RTA is fairly weak on the employer’s responsibility for the driver’s actions while driving for work.
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