Bodycote H I P Ltd, R (on the application of) v HM Coroner for the County of Herefordshire

For a corporate manslaughter verdict at common law, the jury must be directed to identify at least one individual who had the status of a directing mind of the company and whose gross negligence could engage the company’s criminal responsibility. A company is not liable merely because of the aggregate failings of employees who lack that status. Where an inquest jury receives inadequate directions on that issue, its verdict of unlawful killing cannot stand if the defect may have affected the result. The court should ordinarily quash the verdict and direct a fresh inquest rather than substitute its own verdict, particularly where more than one possible outcome remains. A narrative verdict may record relevant failures and circumstances even where the criminal threshold for unlawful killing is not established.

Following an inquest into the deaths of two employees at a site using pressurised argon gas, the jury returned verdicts of unlawful killing. The claimant company applied for judicial review and sought to quash the verdicts. It argued that the coroner had failed adequately to direct the jury on corporate responsibility for gross negligence manslaughter, particularly the need to identify an individual whose knowledge, responsibility and conduct could be attributed to the company.

The central issue was whether the directions sufficiently explained the legal basis on which a company could be criminally liable for unlawful killing and whether the verdicts could safely stand.

1. Application allowed. The verdicts of unlawful killing concerning both deceased persons were quashed. Fresh inquests were directed, to be conducted with a coroner sitting with a jury.
2. At common law, a company can be criminally liable for manslaughter only where manslaughter liability is established in a human individual who has the status of a directing mind of the company. The company is not automatically liable for every failing of every employee. The relevant inquiry requires consideration of what the directors or directing mind knew, or should have known, and whether the conduct met the criminal standard of gross negligence. This was the effect of Attorney-General’s Reference (No 2 of 1999) [2000] 2 Cr App R 207.
3. The summing-up was inadequate because it did not direct the jury to consider whether at least one individual had sufficient foresight and responsibility to have acted differently. That defect was material. The evidence raised several possible routes to individual criminal responsibility, including failures in supervision, training, risk assessment and implementation of safety procedures.
4. It was not possible to say that only one verdict could properly have been returned. Nor would there be no value in a further investigation. The court therefore declined to substitute its own verdict. It observed that a narrative verdict could record particular breaches or failures even if the criminal standard for unlawful killing were not met.
5. The observations concerning possible Health and Safety Executive proceedings and the operation of section 16 of the Coroner’s Act 1988 were intended to assist those involved and were not orders determining issues not fully argued.