Central Criminal Court
| Date | 01 August 1992 |
| Published date | 01 August 1992 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201839205600302 |
| Subject Matter | Central Criminal Court |
CENTRAL
CRIMINAL
COURT
RECOGNITION OF THE OFFENCE OF CORPORATE MANSLAUGHTER
P&0European Ferries (Dover)
Ltd
At the trial of seven individual defendants and P &0European Ferries
(Dover) Ltd, owners of the Herald
of
Free Enterprise, Turner J was asked
to rule on the question whether English law recognised the offence of
corporate manslaughter
«1991)
93 Cr
App
R72). After argument he ruled
that an indictment could properly lie against the company.
Turner
J
commenced his reasoning with a statement that the origins of the liability
of a corporation to proceedings by indictment, though obscure, were firmly
established, though the rationale was not fully understood, by 1842. The
watershed came in the years 1943 and 1944 with the trio of cases
DPP
v
Kent
and
Sussex Contractors
Ltd
[1944J 1 KB 146, fCR Haulage
Ltd
[1944J
1KB 551 and Moore v Bresler [1944J 2 All
ER
515 which clearly established
the criminal liability of companies.
The
difficulty which the law faced was
to be able to identify the true basis on which the mind of a corporation
could be identified, and the civil courtshad addressed this most particularly
in Tesco Supermarkets
Ltd
v Nattrass [1972J AC 153. Within that case are
to be found the limits of the doctrine of identification. This doctrine is
fundamental to corporate criminal liability.
Turner
J held that where a corporation, through the controlling mind
of one of its agents, does an act which fulfils the prerequisites of the crime
of manslaughter, it can properly be indicted for that crime. The principles
used in a number of
other
legal systems had been set out by counsel and
Turner
Jreferred to some, including New Zealand, but since they were
only of persuasive value he did not refer to all of them in his reasoning.
Reference was, however, made to R v
HM
Coroner for East Kent, ex p
Spooner (1989) 88 Cr
App
R 10 which was a decision of the Divisional
Court in relation to proceedings before the coroner arising from the same
events as had led to this prosecution, and was cited with approval (53 JCL
256).
.This ruling is to be welcomed as a clear statement of the law and helps
to establish apoint of principle on the offence of manslaughter.
Ruth Harrison
201
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