Company Charged for Corporate Manslaughter

Geotechnical Holdings charged under the 2007 Corporate Manslaughter Act.

Gloucestershire-based Geotechnical Holdings is accused over the death of employee Alexander Wright, 27, who was killed when a pit collapsed in September 2008.
The junior geologist was taking soil samples at a site near Stroud in Gloucestershire at the time.
Company director Peter Eaton is charged with gross negligence manslaughter and could be jailed for life if convicted.
The maximum sentence for the firm is an unlimited fine.
Both Mr Eaton and the company face health and safety charges.
The 2007 Corporate Manslaughter Act was brought in to make it easier to bring companies to justice over the death of employees.

’Duty of care’

Kate Leonard, of the CPS Special Crime Division, said: "Under the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 an organisation is guilty of corporate manslaughter if the way in which its activities are managed or organised causes a death and amounts to a gross breach of a duty of care to the person who died.

"A substantial part of the breach must have been in the way activities were organised by senior management.
"I have concluded that there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction for this offence."
The parents of Alexander Wright, spoke about their son at the time of his death.

At the time of Mr Wright’s death his parents said: "We are absolutely devastated. He was the ideal son you could have asked for."
Peter Eaton is due before magistrates in Stroud on 17 June.
 

Source - BBC