New powers to punish organisations for manslaughter can hit them where it hurts †in their balance sheets and beyond, writes Anthony Fitzsimmons It all began in 1987, when that convicting larger companies townsend thoresen's Herald would be very difficult.Only tiny of Free Enterprise capsized companies were ever found guilty. at Zeebrugge, leaving 193 passengers the new Corporate Manslaughter and crew dead. the public enquiry act, which has been in force since concluded: "From top to bottom the body corporate was infected with the disease of sloppiness." a reluctant Director of Public Prosecutions eventually prosecuted the company, by now renamed P&O European Ferries, and seven staff for manslaughter. the charges were dismissed. though there had been a serious systemic failure, no senior manager had been individually negligent enough; for the company to be guilty, there had to be a sufficiently senior manager whose individual "gross negligence" had caused the deaths. Many thought the company had escaped conviction because the law was unfair. later attempts to prosecute cases of corporate manslaughter confirmed april 2008, is intended to remove the Herald "loophole". Corporate manslaughter now includes death caused by gross incompetence in the way an organisation is run by its senior management. When corporate incompetence is thought to be the cause of high-profile deaths, a mood of public outrage is common, whether the deaths stem from food poisoning, a rail crash, a dysfunctional care service or hospital- acquired infections. Even the level of prison suicides occasionally makes headlines. What ultimately matters is what the prosecutor and a jury think. the act applies to all private organisations and, with exceptions, to most arms of government.
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