For the fourth time in as many months the Crown Prosecution Service has announced it is to charge a company with corporate manslaughter.
Mobile Sweepers (Reading) Ltd is being charged with the offence, along with its sole director, Mervyn Owens, who faces a charge of gross-negligence manslaughter, in relation to the death of employee, Malcolm Hinton on 6 March 2012.
Mr Hinton died from crush injuries after working on a repair underneath a road-sweeping truck at Mobile Sweepers’ premises at Riddings Farm, near Basingstoke. He had inadvertently removed a hydraulic hose, which caused the back of the truck to fall on him.
Colin Gibbs, senior lawyer in Special Crime for the CPS, said: “I have carefully reviewed all the evidence gathered by Hampshire Police and the Health and Safety Executive during their investigation into the tragic death of Malcolm Hinton [and] have concluded there is sufficient evidence to charge Mobile Sweepers (Reading) Limited with corporate manslaughter under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.
“I have also decided there is sufficient evidence to charge the company’s sole director Mervyn Owens with gross-negligence manslaughter.
“In addition, I have authorised charges against both Mobile Sweepers (Reading) Limited and Mr Owens with an offence under section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 and also with an offence under regulation 5(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.
The first hearing will take place at Basingstoke Magistrates’ Court on 21 March.
In November, the CPS announced a charge of corporate manslaughter against Norfolk garden nursery Belmont, run by PS and JE Ward Ltd, in relation to the death of an employee in July 2010.
In January, the company that owns Welsh colliery Gleision, where four miners died in a flooding incident in September 2011, was charged on four counts of corporate manslaughter.
Last month, Prince’s Sporting Club, of Middlesex, was charged under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 following the death of an 11-year-old girl who fell from a banana-boat ride.
On Tuesday, 23 April SHP will be running a free webinar on ‘Corporate manslaughter: five years on’ featuring a panel of some of the UK’s foremost legal experts in this area. Click here for more information.
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And there’s a NHS trust in Bolton coming under fire, as well as 17 [seventeen] under investigation.
Short answer is Mark, that it’s in nobody’s interest apart the public who use the service. Tories don’t want it coz they’re the govt, Labour don’t want it coz it happened on their watch, the Unions don’t want it coz it’s their members, the management don’t won’t it coz they’re to blame.
I’ve been working on vehicles on and off, in both professional and hobbyist capacity for over 35 years and you have to question the competence of someone prepared to work under an un-proped vehicle – particularly a LGV – and then mess with the hydraulics.
Why the SME again?
What about an NHS trust and it’s staff somewhere in the midlands?
My understanding was that the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act was introduced to enable companies to be prosecuted where a controlling mind was not identifiable and so a proecution was not posible under the Health and Safety at Work Act. So why a prosecution under both Act’s for the same offence, particularly as there is a sole Director. Is this a case of the CPS not understanding the purpose of the Act?