Suspended Sentence for Manslaughter

Gross Negligence Manslaughter is a personal offence and can be punished by imprisonment and/or by fine. This is different from Corporate Killing (Corporate Manslaughter), which is a Corporate Offence and is punishable by a fine.

In this recent case, the director of a London metalworks firm has been convicted of gross negligence manslaughter after a five tonne metal-cutting guillotine fell from the forklift truck that he was driving and crushed a worker. Mr Mohammed Babamiri, managing director of RK Metalworks, did not have a licence to drive the forklift. Suspended sentence for manslaughter:  Mr Babamiri was sentenced to 18 months in jail, suspended for two years, after a month long trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court. He was also found guilty of breaching Section 37 of the Health and Safety at Work Act, for which he was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for two years. He was given a 12 month supervision order, requiring him to meet a probation officer regularly.

The worker died while helping to relocate RK Metalworks to smaller premises on the Hastingwood Trading Estate in Edmonton, North London, in January 2013. Ambulance and fire crews attended the scene and used a car jack to raise the guillotine from him. He was taken to hospital but died two hours later.

At the scene, Babamiri admitted he had been driving a forklift to try to move the machine. Further to this, CCTV showed that Mr David Hawkins, who worked for Hastingwood Securities (the company that ran the industrial estate) had also been using a forklift to help move it. He had left the scene by the time officers from the Metropolitan Police and HSE arrived but was arrested the next day.

Hawkins was tried alongside Babamiri but was cleared of gross negligence manslaughter. He was convicted of breaching Section 7 of the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSW Act), for which he was given a six month jail term, suspended for two years.

RK Metalworks was found guilty of breaching Sections 2 and 3 of the HSW Act and was fined £75,000 for each offence.

Hastingwood Securities was found guilty of the same HSWA breaches and was fined £125,000 for each offence. It was also ordered to pay costs of £70,000.

Speaking after the case, HSE inspector Kevin Smith said

“The circumstances surrounding Shenol’s tragic death are barely comprehensible.”

“How anyone could have considered moving the guillotine with such inadequate equipment and an apparent absence of any planning as a safe and acceptable practice frankly beggars belief.”