{"id":1888,"date":"2011-02-19T07:20:46","date_gmt":"2011-02-19T07:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/?p=1888"},"modified":"2011-02-19T07:20:46","modified_gmt":"2011-02-19T07:20:46","slug":"corporate-manslaughter-conviction-385000-fine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/?p=1888","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Manslaughter Conviction &#8211; \u00a3385,000 Fine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"img alignleft size-full wp-image-1889\" style=\"width:166px;\">\r\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Alex-Wright-the-victim-of-corporate-manslaughter.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/Alex-Wright-the-victim-of-corporate-manslaughter.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"166\" height=\"303\" \/><\/a>\r\n\t<div>Alex Wright the victim of corporate manslaughter<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n<p>The first conviction and sentence under the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.legislation.gov.uk\/ukpga\/2007\/19\/contents \">Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007<\/a>, occurred this week when Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings was fined \u00a3385,000.<\/p>\n<p>In September 2008, Alex Wright, a young geologist employed by the company was investigating soil conditions in a deep trench, which collapsed and killed him.<\/p>\n<p>The case is  the first of its kind and is the first test of how the Sentencing Guidelines on Corporate Manslaughter (issued in February 2010) might be interpreted and applied.\u00a0 It is clear that it would not be unreasonable to expect fines in the millions (rather than hundreds of thousands) of pounds and a starting point for fines is\u00a0 \u00a3500,000, which is far higher than Health and Safety fines.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst the objective of sentencing is to provide adequate deterrent to other companies who may commit health and safety offences, it should not have the effect of putting the company out of business and causing employees to lose their jobs.<\/p>\n<p>The judge described Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings as in a \u201cparlous financial state\u201d, and the low fine reflects their inability to pay, nevertheless.    the fine is considerable and sets the tone for future corporate manslaughter cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Wright the victim of corporate manslaughter The first conviction and sentence under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, occurred this week when Cotswold Geotechnical Holdings was fined \u00a3385,000. In September 2008, Alex Wright, a young geologist employed by the company was investigating soil conditions in a deep trench, which collapsed and killed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1888"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1891,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1888\/revisions\/1891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}