What offence is created by the new Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007?
The Act creates the new statutory offence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland of “corporate manslaughter”, and in Scotland of “corporate homicide”. A company will be guilty of the new offence in the way in which its activities are managed or organised by its senior management amount to a gross breach of the duty of care it owes to its employees, the public or other individuals, and those failings cause a person’s death. Companies and government bodies face prosecution if they are found to have caused a person’s death due to their corporate failings in health and safety. How does the Act differ from current law? The current law links an organisation’s guilt to the gross negligence of an individual who is said to be the embodiment of the company (the directing mind). It has proven very difficult to prosecute large organisations, and the only successful prosecutions have been against small companies where the director and company are essentially one and the same. The new Act seeks to a
