A
horticultural supplier has become the fourth UK company to face a charge of
corporate manslaughter, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has announced
today.
Grzegorz Krystian Pieton was electrocuted at Belmont Nursery in Norfolk
on 15 July 2010 when the metal hydraulic lift trailer he was towing touched an
overhead power line.
The nursery operator, PS
& JE Ward, will appear at King's Lynn Magistrates' Court on 23 November,
Rene Barclay, principal crown advocate in the special crime and counter
terrorism division of the CPS, said.
The company also faces a
charge of failing to ensure the safety of employees, contrary to Section 2(1)
of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act
came into force in April 2008 across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern
Ireland. It created a new offence, which is committed by a relevant
organisation “... if the way in which its activities are managed or organised —
(a) causes a person's death, and (b) amounts to a gross breach of a relevant
duty of care owed by the organisation to the deceased”.
The first firm to be
prosecuted under the Act was Cotswold
Geotechnical Holdings which was convicted in February 2011 over the death
of junior geologist Alexander Wright who was fatally injured when the sides of
a trench collapsed.
JMW Farms was the first firm
to be convicted under the Act in Northern Ireland after it admitted the charge.
This summer Lion Steel was
fined £480,000 for the corporate manslaughter of one of its employees, who fell
through a fibreglass roof light.
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