The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has announced it is bringing the first ever charge under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.

On 23 April, the CPS authorised a charge of corporate manslaughter against Gloucestershire-based Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings over the death of 27-year-old employee Alexander Wright.

Wright, a junior geologist, was killed in September 2008 when the sides of the pit in which he'd been collecting soil samples collapsed and crushed him. The pit had been excavated as part of a survey at a site in Stroud.

As well as corporate manslaughter, Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings has been charged with breaching Section 33 of the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSW Act).

Company director Peter Eaton has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter and with breaching Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work Act, which states that where a company's offence is committed with the consent, or due to the connivance or neglect, of a director, the director will also be guilty of that offence.

Eaton will appear before Stroud magistrates on 17 June to face charges as an individual and on the company's behalf.

Kate Leonard, reviewing lawyer at the CPS Special Crime Division, said: "Under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 an organisation is guilty of corporate manslaughter if the way in which its activities are managed or organised causes a death and amounts to a gross breach of a duty of care to the person who died.

"A substantial part of the breach must have been in the way activities were organised by senior management.

"I have concluded that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction for this offence."

The penalty for a conviction for corporate manslaughter is an unlimited fine for the organisation, while a conviction for gross negligence manslaughter carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment for the individual.

Article created by Editor. (info@complyuk.co.uk)