The Sentencing Guidelines Council last month (February) published definitive guideline on the penalties for corporate manslaughter and health and safety offences which lead to the death of an employee.

Their advice is clear – punitive and significant fines should be imposed both to deter and to reflect public concern at avoidable loss of life.

The Council said fines for companies and organisations found guilty of corporate manslaughter may be millions of pounds and should seldom be below £500,000. For other health and safety offences that cause death, fines from £100,000 up to hundreds of thousands of pounds should be imposed.

And recent changes in the law, including a House of Lords decision in the case of Regina v Chargot, have made it easier to prosecute employers and individuals successfully for breaches of health and safety law, say Paul Burnley (a Partner) and Poppy Williams (a Solicitor) in the Litigation and Regulatory Group of DLA Piper UK Llp.

In the case of Chargot, it was decided that the mere fact an injury has occurred at work is enough to show an employer has failed to ensure an employee’s safety. As a result of that decision the legal burden has passed to the employer to show it was not reasonably practicable to do anything more to prevent the injury.

Even in non-fatal health and safety breaches the penalties have been dramatically increased by the Health & Safety Offences Act 2008. Many relatively minor offences previously attracting a moderate fine can now be punished by significantly greater fines and even imprisonment – and the Health & Safety Executive is showing no hesitation in using its powers.

A health and safety inspector can visit any workplace without giving notice.

Whatever the purpose of the visit, inspectors have the authority to take any or all of the following actions:

l to require any person to answer questions if there is reasonable cause to believe they hold relevant information

l to direct that premises should be left undisturbed for as long as is reasonably necessary

l to take measurements and photographs or samples of anything in the premises

l to take possession of anything for so long as is necessary to examine it and to ensure it is available for legal proceedings

l to dismantle anything which is likely to cause danger to health and safety

l to take any book or document relevant to the investigation

l to require employers to give them the facilities and assistance necessary for carrying out their powers

l to issue an improvement or prohibition notice (requiring you to take certain safety measures or cease a certain activity).

If there has been an incident resulting in a fatality at work, the police will also investigate. They will be looking for evidence of individual manslaughter and / or corporate manslaughter.

It is easy to be irritated by the intrusion of an HSE Inspector but whatever you do, do not obstruct them in their enquiries because doing so can result in prosecution leading to a fine or imprisonment. And obstruction can be interpreted widely – from physically preventing them from exercising their powers to refusing to provide information.

Employers have even been accused of obstruction simply by not waiting to interview their own employees until after the police have conducted their interviews, in spite of the statutory duty on an employer to investigate health and safety incidents.

It is also an offence to prevent or even attempt to prevent a person answering an inspector’s questions. Again, this can be interpreted widely and you can be accused of committing this offence if the inspector considers you are unnecessarily interrupting their questioning of a witness.

Co-operate with inspectors. Do not let them bully you and do ask questions but be mindful of their potential powers if they feel you have overstepped the mark.

Do not ignore any formal notice. These notices have legal force and while they can be appealed through the Employment Tribunal system (surprisingly enough) failure to adhere to them can lead to prosecution resulting in imprisonment or a fine or both.