Increased risk of jail for H&S offences

Increased risk of jail for health and safety offences: 23 people received either an immediate or suspended custodial sentence between the beginning of February and mid-September, which is about three per month.

On 1 February 2016, the new sentencing guidelines for health and safety offences came into force. To put this into perspective, 189 individuals were sentenced to the same penalty for health and safety offences between 1974, when the Health and Safety at Work Act came into force, and the end of January 2016, according to figures compiled by HSB. This equates to an average of less than five a year. That is a steep upward curve.

It has been commented by a lawyer from DWF that the change in the guidelines for judges and magistrates followed a shift in attitude among prosecuting authorities, which are increasingly likely to prosecute people for breaching safety law.

• Between 2011 and 2014, there was a 400% increase in prosecutions against individuals.

There is an increased risk of jail. Of these 23 people who received immediate or suspended custodial sentences; ten were for gas safety offences; 20 were directors of small businesses or sole traders, and three were employees.

Most of the 23 offenders sentenced since February received suspended sentences, but six people were given immediate prison sentences for safety offences. All six were directors of small firms or were sole traders, with two custodial sentences for gross negligence manslaughter.

One Director was jailed in April for six years over double demolition fall – one worker died, and another was seriously injured on the same day during a demolition in Stockport,

A business owner who was acting as a site manager on a refurbishment in Leicester, where a window fitter fell to his death, was jailed for 30 months.

Others jailed since the guideline came into force include Kenneth Thelwall, the director of a Cheshire warehouse firm, who was jailed for a year after an employee died when the MEWP he was loading onto a truck fell and crushed him.

If it can be shown that a company has allegedly breached the Health and Safety at Work Act with the consent, connivance or neglect of a director, that individual can also face prosecution under Section 37 of the Act.  DWF lawyer Simon Tingle commented:

“The boundaries have shifted with respect to Section 37. The relevant question with respect to neglect is not actual knowledge but, by reason of the surrounding circumstances, whether an officer should have been put on enquiry as to whether or not the appropriate safety procedures were in place,”