Railtrack Escapes Manslaughter Charges

Railtrack looks set to escape corporate manslaughter charges for its role in the Paddington Rail crash, despite large amounts of public and political pressure on the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). The CPS has today announced its opinion that there is not enough evidence to secure a prosecution.

The CPS was concerned with the offence of manslaughter by gross negligence. In order to convict a person of this offence, four things have to be proved. First, that the defendant owed the deceased a duty to take reasonable care of the deceased. Secondly, that he was in breach of that duty, or negligent. Thirdly, that his negligence caused or substantially contributed to the death. Fourthly, that his breach of duty should be characterised as gross negligence and therefore as a crime.

The defendant does not have to be present at the scene for this charge to be made out. But a director or senior manager of a company, for example, will only be guilty of manslaughter if he or she is personally responsible for the actual events that led to the death.

The law requires proof of the guilt of a director or senior manager of a company before a court will convict that company of manslaughter.

The CPS says that  in most of the areas looked at it found that there was some fault on the part of Railtrack, but in each case it felt that charges were not justified, either because there was:

 - no evidence that Railtrack's fault could be linked to the collision; or
 - no identifiable person who could be singled out and held responsible; or
 - the negligence could not be characterised as gross negligence.

It is widely expected that the law will be changed in the near future to make convictions for corporate manslaughter easier to secure.
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