Corporate killing : the proposed criminal law for manslaughter at work.

The focus of the study was to research the success and failure of Corporate Manslaughter cases under the present law, and to identity the management systems that a corporation would required, to meet the obligations for health and safety under the proposed offence of Corporate Killing. A review was made of the rationale between the successful small company prosecution where there is considered to be hands on management to the prosecution failures of large companies where the management are deemed to be remote from an incident. To obtain a base line, a review was made of the proposed offence of Corporate Killing, which involves a substantial revision of the homicide offence of manslaughter. This clearly identified that the new offence is encompassed in the failure of health and safety management, rather than gross negligence of an individual or individuals. As a foundation, two data bases were researched and developed to provide deaths at work profiles. The first data base identified cases that were submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service for review for Corporate or individual manslaughter. The summary of the data showed that there were 86 cases of which 39 cases were not progressed, and only in 6 cases were there guilty verdicts. A second data base was developed identitying cases where there had been a death at work and where there were no manslaughter prosecutions, but there were charges laid under the Health and Safety at Work etc 1974 and Regulations,. with the resulting outcome of penalties levied.