On the 3rd of November 2015 the Sentencing Council issued new guidelines which will apply to sentencing in all health and safety and corporate manslaughter prosecutions.
It will be mandatory for Courts to follow the guidelines for all sentences passed after the 1 February 2016, regardless of whether the offence took place before that date. This heralds the start of an era where sentencing in health and safety offences will increase dramatically as will the commercial and reputational consequences which follow on from the imposition of significant fines.
The suggested range of sentencing makes stark reading, particularly for large organisations. Under current guidelines fines for health and safety offences resulting in death should not normally be less than £100,000 and for corporate manslaughter not less than £500,000. Those figures pale into insignificance when compared with the incoming guidelines. For health and safety offences fines of up to £10 million are envisaged for large organisations (those with a turnover greater than £50 million), up to £4 million for medium sized organisations (turnover between £10m and £50m), up to £1.6 million for small (£2m-£10m) and up to £450,000 for micro (less than £2m).
For corporate manslaughter offences the ranges are even higher with penalties of up to £20 million for large organisations. Where an organisation's turnover greatly exceeds the £50 million threshold Courts may go beyond the figures contained within the guidelines. The other two factors influencing the level of fines imposed under the new regime are the seriousness of the offence in terms of the level of culpability, and the level of harm caused. Culpability ranges from very high – deliberate breach of or flagrant disregard for the law, down to low – where an offender did not fall far short of the appropriate standard.
