Bodycote Hip, R v

Corporate health-and-safety fines have no tariff. Earlier sentences provide only a broad feel sufficient to prevent arbitrariness; they do not create a benchmark or make consistency the primary sentencing aim. The court must assess the individual offence, including systemic safety failures, aggravating and mitigating features, and any evidence of means.

A reduction for a timely guilty plea is applied only after the court has fixed the sentence that would otherwise be appropriate. Prosecution costs are compensatory and discretionary. The court must consider the combined financial effect, but a defendant which supplies no evidence of means cannot rely on inability to pay where the costs are agreed and are not grossly disproportionate to the fine.

The appellant company pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Worcester to an offence under section 2(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Two employees died after argon accumulated in a pit surrounding a hot isostatic press. The Recorder found longstanding and systemic failures in ventilation, gas detection, maintenance, permits for confined-space entry, risk assessment, training and supervision.

The Recorder imposed a fine of £533,000 after allowing one-third credit for the timely plea, and ordered agreed prosecution costs of £200,000. The company appealed against sentence, contending that the starting point was too high, mitigation had been insufficiently reflected, and the Recorder should have reduced the fine to account for the costs order.

1. Appeal dismissed. The fine of £533,000 was not manifestly excessive, and the agreed costs order of £200,000 was lawful and reasonable.
2. There is no tariff for corporate health-and-safety offending. Earlier decisions, including R v TDG (UK) Limited [2008] EWCA Crim 1963, may give a broad indication of levels of fine. They cannot establish a £600,000 benchmark or require variations from it to be justified. The court must instead assess the particular offence and its seriousness.
3. The Recorder was entitled to treat the failures as grave. The risks posed by argon were known, the deficiencies were multiple and systemic, and earlier fatal incidents at a related plant had not been adequately heeded. The Recorder also properly gave weight to mitigation, including remedial measures, co-operation, settlement of civil claims and the absence of previous convictions. He first assessed the fine appropriate after a contested trial and then reduced it by one-third for the timely guilty plea.
4. A sentencing court must consider a defendant's means before imposing a financial penalty. Here the appellant provided no financial information. The Recorder could infer that it could pay the penalty and that lack of resources was not relied on as a limiting factor.
5. Under section 18(1) of the Prosecution of Offences Act 1985, prosecution costs must be just and reasonable and should compensate rather than punish. The court should consider the combined effect of fine and costs, consistently with R v Northallerton Magistrates' Court ex parte Dove [1999] EWHC 499 (Admin). Since the appellant had disclosed no means, the costs were agreed, and £200,000 was not grossly disproportionate to the fine, there was no basis to reduce either sum.

The court ordered the appellant to pay the respondent's appeal costs of £12,805.95 if agreed, otherwise subject to detailed assessment.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) — dismissed the company’s appeal against sentence and upheld the fine and prosecution costs order.
• Crown Court at Worcester — following a guilty plea, the Recorder imposed a fine of £533,000 and ordered agreed prosecution costs of £200,000.