Corporate Manslaughter: an Examination of the Determinants of Prosecutorial Policy
| Published date | 01 December 1993 |
| Author | Gary Slapper |
| DOI | 10.1177/096466399300200404 |
| Date | 01 December 1993 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
423
CORPORATE
MANSLAUGHTER:
AN
EXAMINATION
OF
THE
DETERMINANTS
OF
PROSECUTORIAL
POLICY
GARY
SLAPPER
Staffordshare
University,
UK
INTRODUCTION
HERE
ARE
over
7000
different
criminal
offences
under
current
law
t
(Seighart,
1980:15).
In
some
cases
it
is
perhaps
not
surprising
to
learn
that
the
offences
are
only
nominally
so.
It
is,
for
example,
still
an
offence
of
treason
(and
therefore
punishable
by
death)
under
the
Treason
Act
1351
for
someone
to
’violate
the
King’s
companion
[wife]
or
the
King’s
eldest
daughter
unmarried...’
although
the
Crown
Prosecution
Service,
is
not,
of
course,
overworked
by
this
sort
of
offender.
By
contrast,
however,
between
500
and
600
people
are
killed
at
work
or
through
the
operation
of
commerce
each
year,’
more
than
twice
the
number
who
fall
victim
to
personal
reckless
manslaughter.2
A
case
at
Glamorgan
Assizes
in
1965
demonstrated
the
validity
of
the
indictment
for
corporate
manslaughter.
In
the
unreported
case
of
R
v
Northern
Strip
Mining
Construction
Co.
Ltd
(The
Times,
2,
4,
5
February
1965)
a
welder-burner,
Glanville
Evans,
was
drowned
when
a
railway bridge
which
the
company
was
demolishing
collapsed
and
threw
men
working
on
it
into
the
Wye.
Workmen
had
been
instructed
to
burn
down
sections
of
the
bridge,
starting
in
its
middle,
which
prosecuting
counsel
asserted
was
as
ludicrous
as
telling
a
man
sitting
on
the
branch
of
a
tree
to
saw
that
branch.
The
defendant
company
was
acquitted
on
the
facts
of
the
case
but
neither
eminent
counsel
appearing
in
the
SOCIAL
LEGAL
STUDIES
(SAGE,
London,
Newbury
Park
and
New
Delhi),
Vol.
2
(1993),
423-443
&dquo;’...
&dquo;&dquo;?
424
case
(Mr
Philip
Wien
QC
for
the
Crown;
Mr
W.
L.
Mars-Jones
for
the
Defendant
company)
nor
the
very
experienced
presiding
judge,
Mr
Justice
Streatfeild
appeared
to
have
any
doubt
about
the
validity
of
the
indictment.
Indeed,
Mr
Mars-Jones
for
the
defendant
directly
conceded
the
propriety
of
such
an
indictment
when
he
said:
it
is
the
prosecution’s
task
to
show
that
the
defendant
company,
in
the
person
of
Mr.
Camm,
managing
director,
was
guilty
of
such
a
degree
of
negligence
that
amounted
to
a
reckless
disregard
for
the
life
and
limb
of
his
workmen.
February
1965,
therefore,
has
some
claim
to
be
the
first
judicial
recognition
of
the
validity
of
the
indictment
for
corporate
manslaughter.
Leigh,
writing
in 1969,
accepted
that
the
indictment
had
been
established:
’it
now
seems
clear
that
corporations
may
be
liable
for
manslaughter’
(Leigh,
1969: 59).
Yet
since
that
time
18,151
people
have
been
killed
at
work
without
a
single
company
having
been
convicted
for
homicide.
Prosecutions
have
followed
against
culpable
employers
in
some
of
these
cases
but
they
have
been
for
regulatory
offences
under
legislation
like
the
Health
and
Safety
at
Work
Act,
1974,
rather
than
for
offences
of
homicide.
The
sanctions
here
are
almost
invariably
low
fines
which
carry
no
stigma
and
are,
in
the
context
of
the
wealth
of
many
companies,
the
equivalent
financial
penalty
of
a
parking
fine
for
an
individual
(Carson,
1981: 269-89;
Ermann
and
Lundman,
1982:148).
The
result
of
this
is
that
neither
social
consciousness
nor
the
annual
Criminal
Statistics
register
any
serious
homicide
committed
by
companies
although
there
is
much
prima
facie
evidence
to
suggest
that
many
people
are
killed
each
year
as
the
result
of
the
criminal
recklessness
of
corporations.
Apart
from
these
deaths,
companies
have
also
been
implicated
in
causing
death
in
’disaster’
scenarios
like
that
of
Zeebrugge,
where
193
people
died
in
March
1987.
A
catalogue
of
some
other
recent
incidents
clarifies
the
scale
of
the
problem
and
in
all
the
following
cases
the
relevant
companies
have
been
inculpated
by
the
evidence
(and
with
some
an
official
enquiry
report)
in
contributing
in
some
significant
way
to
the
cause
of
death: the
King’s
Cross
fire,
31
deaths
in
November
1987;
the
Piper
Alpha
oil
rig
fire,
167
deaths
in
July
1988;
the
Clapham
train
crash,
35
deaths
in
December
1988;
the
Purley
train
crash,
5
deaths
in
March
1989;
and
the
sinking
of
the
Marchioness,
51
deaths
in
August
1989.
Why
has
there
been
only
a
single
charge
of
corporate
manslaughter
(against
P
&
0
European
Ferries
[Dover]
Ltd)3
brought
since
the
validity
of
such
an
indictment
was
clearly
established
in
1965?
A
number
of
explanations
immedi-
ately
present
themselves
but
none
are
entirely
convincing.
The
idea
that
companies
have
simply
not
come
within
the
actus
reus
and
mens
rea
of
this
crime
during
a
25-year
period
is
implausible
considering
the
very
high
number
of
deaths
and
the
great
diversity
of
situations
from
which
they
resulted.
Alterna-
tively,
it
could be submitted
that
the
reason
for
the
absence
of
prosecutions
for
manslaughter
is
that
the
HSE
has
prosecuted
for
other
regulatory
crimes.
This
explanation,
however,
seems
only
partly
to
demystify
the
issue
because
it
leaves
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