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Health, Safety and Environment Update: £400,000 Fine in Non-Fatal Fire Upheld
Date: 17th June 2010
Categories: Criminal and Regulatory
In a judgment handed down on 16 June 2010, the Court of Appeal upheld a fine of £400,000 imposed by HHJ Rivlin at Southwark Crown Court for breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 in connection with a fire in April 2009. No one was killed or injured in the fire.
It had been submitted on behalf of New Look that the fine was out of step with the Sentencing Guidelines Council guidelines for cases of Corporate Manslaughter and Health and Safety Offences causing death issued in February 2010. These suggest that in cases of Corporate Manslaughter, the appropriate fine will "seldom be less than £500,000 and may be measured in millions of pounds", and in Health and Safety offences shown to have caused death, "the appropriate fine will seldom be less than £100,000 and may be measured in hundreds of thousands of pounds or more." It was therefore submitted that the fine imposed was at a level that might have been appropriate had there been a death but not, as here, where there had not been. This submission was rejected on the basis that the guidance provides a floor for offences causing a death but not a ceiling for those that do not.
Significantly, the court rejected submissions made in reliance on the much cited case of R v Friskies Petcare UK Ltd (2000) stating that this case "can no longer be taken to reflect judicial attitudes towards responsibility for major disasters". In Friskies it was suggested that fines in excess of £500,000 should be reserved for major public disasters.
In rejecting the appeal, the court made reference to the particular risks of death and serious injury posed by fire: "Fire can be indiscriminate in its effect and, in the case of an organisation which in the centre of a large city undertakes responsibility for large numbers of visitors to its premises, breach will usually be a very serious matter. It is no different a standard from that owed by any organisation towards large numbers of people whom it is required to protect from injury or death from a known hazard."
As to the absence of any death or serious injury the court said, "the court does not have to wait until death or serious injury has occurred to express its displeasure at wholesale breaches of the defendant's responsibilities under the Order... We accept that the judge was intending to impose a fine which reflected the seriousness of the offence in its creation of the risk to its visitors."
Noting New Look's 2009 pre-tax profits of £200 million, the court concluded that the fine was severe but not manifestly excessive.
The London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority were represented by Stephen Walsh QC and Saba Naqshbandi. New Look were represented by Jonathan Caplan QC and John Cooper.
If you have any questions about the above, please contact your Kingsley Napley representative, or alternatively:
Jonathan Grimes
Partner
Email: jgrimes@kingsleynapley.co.uk
Direct line: 020 7814 1234
