New Sentencing Laws for Corporate Manslaughter

Make sure you're doing everything to keep your driving workforce safe

At the beginning of February the Sentencing Guideline Council published it's recommended sentencing charges for corporate manslaughter and health and safety offences causing death. These are the first guidelines for sentencing organisations not individuals. The council uses these guidelines to help courts make decisions on sentencing organisations that have caused death through a serious breach of care of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974.

New guidelines, which took effect from Monday (February 15), have set out the precise financial risk that organisations face if they have not done everything possible to minimise health and safety hazards with their vehicles.

Under these new guidelines, if a work-related road death leads to a prosecution for a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the fine will be "....seldom less than £100,000 and may be measured in hundreds of thousands of pounds or more".

And if conviction of corporate manslaughter is proven, the fine imposed will be "...seldom less than £500,000 and may be measured in millions of pounds".

Tyre Pressure Monitoring and Brake Testing are two ways that organisations with a driving workforce can be vigilant in avoiding accidents at work. Even in the case of an incident some of these products can assist in demonstrating a company has done everything in it's care to protect its driving workforce. Follow these links to find out more

Tyre Pressure Monitoring

Brake Testing

 

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