Gross breach
8 Factors for jury
(1) This section applies where—
- (a) it is established that an organisation owed a relevant duty of care to a person, and
- (b) it falls to the jury to decide whether there was a gross breach of that duty.
(2) The jury must consider whether the evidence shows that the organisation failed to comply with any health and safety legislation that relates to the alleged breach, and if so—
- (a) how serious that failure was;
- (b) how much of a risk of death it posed.
(3) The jury may also—
- (a) consider the extent to which the evidence shows that there were attitudes, policies, systems or accepted practices within the organisation that were likely to have encouraged any such failure as is mentioned in subsection (2), or to have produced tolerance of it;
- (b) have regard to any health and safety guidance that relates to the alleged breach.
(4) This section does not prevent the jury from having regard to any other matters they consider relevant.
(5) In this section “health and safety guidance” means any code, guidance, manual or similar publication that is concerned with health and safety matters and is made or issued (under a statutory provision or otherwise) by an authority responsible for the enforcement of any health and safety legislation.
Remedial orders and publicity orders
9 Power to order breach etc to be remedied
(1) A court before which an organisation is convicted of corporate manslaughter or corporate homicide may make an order (a “remedial order”) requiring the organisation to take specified steps to remedy—
- (a) the breach mentioned in section 1(1) (“the relevant breach”);
- (b) any matter that appears to the court to have resulted from the relevant breach and to have been a cause of the death;
- (c) any deficiency, as regards health and safety matters, in the organisation’s policies, systems or practices of which the relevant breach appears to the court to be an indication.
(2) A remedial order may be made only on an application by the prosecution specifying the terms of the proposed order.
Any such order must be on such terms (whether those proposed or others) as the court considers appropriate having regard to any representations made, and any evidence adduced, in relation to that matter by the prosecution or on behalf of the organisation.
