Company found guilty in first corporate manslaughter trial

On 15 February 2011, a jury at Winchester Crown Court found Cotswold Geotechnical (Holdings) Ltd (Cotswold) guilty of corporate manslaughter. This criminal prosecution is the first time a company has been charged with or convicted of this offence under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, which came into force on 6 April 2008.

Originally, a director of Cotswold, Peter Eaton, was also charged with gross negligence manslaughter. However, in October 2010, Bristol Crown Court permanently stayed those charges due to his ill-health (see Legal update, More delays for first corporate manslaughter trial).

For more information on the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, see Practice note, Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.

The case against Cotswold followed the death of an employee in September 2008 while taking soil samples from the bottom of a 3.5 metre trial pit at a building site. The jury heard that the walls of the trial pit were not supported and soil collapsed into the trial pit, burying and asphyxiating the employee. The prosecution's case was that Cotswold's systems had failed to take all reasonably practicable steps to protect the employee from its unsafe system of work in digging trial pits that were unnecessarily dangerous. The company ignored well-recognised industry guidance that prohibited entry into excavations more than 1.2 metres deep and, at the time of the employee's death, Cotswold had left him unsupervised on site.

Some commentators have argued that the Act was not designed to prosecute small businesses like Cotswold. However, the case was seen as a test case for the legislation. To secure the conviction, the prosecution needed to demonstrate that:

The successful prosecution of Cotswold demonstrates the importance for businesses to have a health and safety culture and to ensure that everyone takes responsibility for improving health and safety. Whether a larger organisation can draw any further conclusions on the risks to its business, if it was ever convicted of the offence, may need to wait until sentencing, which is due to take place on Thursday, 17 February 2011. The offence may be penalised by an unlimited fine.