• Government Proposals will not increase director accountability;
  
  
• Proposals could result in adequate investigations;
  
  
• Proposals allow Government Bodies to Escape Prosecution;
  
  
• Proposals will allow British Companies that kill abroad to escape Prosecution.

There is a risk that Company Directors will continue to escape prosecution for manslaughter under the Home Office proposals unless the Government imposes, by law, safety duties upon directors, says the Centre for Corporate Accountability in its detailed response to the government's consultation document.

"The Home Office has concentrated too much on the accountability of "companies" at the expense of the accountability of "company directors" - even though it is directors who actually control companies and make the key decisions that will determine whether a company operates in a safe manner,"

said David Bergman, Director of the CCA when he handed in the Centre's response to the Home Office today.

The new proposed manslaughter offences are a distinct improvement upon the current law. They remove the need to prove that company directors had a civil law "duty of care" towards the person who died - something that rarely exists except in large companies, and has been one of the reasons why so few directors have been prosecuted under the current law.

However the proposed offences will still require the prosecution to show that company directors had a positive legal duty to act, when the allegation against them is that they failed to act and that their failure was reckless or grossly careless. This is significant because most allegations against company directors relate to their failures and omissions, not their actions, and company directors have no positive legal duties to act in relation to the safety of their company.

As a result, assuming the Home Office proposals come law, company directors will continue to escape prosecution when their reckless or grossly careless omissions were a cause of a death.

Under the Home Office proposals, company directors may not only escape prosecution for the new manslaughter offences - they will also escape criminal accountability even when they "significantly contribute" to their company committing the proposed offence of 'corporate killing'. This is because the Home Office has only proposed that those directors in this position be subject to possible "disqualification" as directors.

Investigation/Prosecution
Another serious problem with the Home Office proposals is that they allow the regulatory agencies like the Health and Safety Executive to take over, from the police and crown prosecution service, the investigation and prosecution of the new manslaughter offences.

"Manslaughter offences should be not be investigated and prosecuted solely by under-funded regulatory agencies with no experience of investigating serious crime with a poor record in the investigation and prosecution of the offences for which it is currently responsible. The police must remain the prime investigating body although it must work together with regulatory agencies" said David Bergman

• The Home Office is proposing that government bodies - including prisons - should be able to escape prosecution for corporate killing however negligent or reckless they may have acted. The Home Office argues that this is because they are Crown Bodies.
  
  It is the Centre's view that all Crown Bodies should be able to prosecuted. Government bodies should not be treated differently from other organisations, and if they cause death through seriously culpable conduct they should be prosecuted.
  
  "A family of a person that died as a result of serious management failures on the part of a government body would expect that the criminal justice system would treat the death in the same way as if the death took place as a result of the activities of a private company" said David Bergman
  
  
• The Home Office is proposing that that English/Welsh companies that cause deaths abroad as a result of seriously culpable management practices should escape prosecution.
  
  It is the Centre's view that companies should be treated no differently to individuals who would, under the Home Office proposals, be prosecuted for the new manslaughter offences even when the death takes place outside Britain.
  
  

1. The Centre for Corporate Accountability is an independent not-for-profit advice and research group concerned with the promotion of worker and public safety.