University College London, R v

When sentencing an organisation for a health and safety offence, the court must apply the Sentencing Council guideline by assessing culpability, harm, organisational size and the offender’s financial reality. Actual serious harm may justify moving substantially upwards within the applicable category range, even where few people were exposed to risk.

A very large organisation may be sentenced by reference to the large-organisation range where that produces a proportionate penalty with real economic impact. Steps 3 and 4 adjust the provisional fine to reflect economic realities; they do not restart the calculation. Charitable status does not itself require a substantial reduction, particularly where the fine will not impair services to needy persons.

University College London pleaded guilty in the Crown Court at Southwark to exposing another to a risk to health and safety. A masters student suffered serious and lasting eye injuries when a viewing port on modified laboratory equipment shattered following over-pressurisation.

The sentencing judge assessed medium culpability and harm category 3. He treated UCL as a large organisation, imposed a fine of £300,000 after allowing credit for the guilty plea, and ordered prosecution costs.

UCL appealed, contending that the starting point was too high, insufficient allowance had been made for its charitable status and mitigation, and the court should have given greater weight to the limited resources and responsibility of the particular department.

1. Appeal dismissed. The fine of £300,000 was not manifestly excessive. A fine in the range advanced by UCL would have been inadequate to reflect the seriousness of the offence.

2. Under the Sentencing Council’s Definitive Guideline on sentencing for health and safety offences, the agreed medium culpability and harm category 3 did not end the assessment. Although relatively few persons were exposed, serious harm had in fact occurred. The guideline therefore required consideration of either moving up a harm category or moving substantially upwards within the category range.

3. UCL was in fact a very large organisation, but the sentencing judge was entitled to use the large-organisation table. Applying the approach explained in Thames Water Utilities Limited [2015] EWCA Crim. 960, the question was whether the large-organisation range, viewed against culpability, harm and financial realities, achieved a proportionate fine with a real economic impact. Treating UCL as large was favourable to it. The serious injury justified a post-trial fine substantially above the £300,000 starting point within the £130,000 to £750,000 range.

4. Steps 3 and 4 required adjustment of the provisional fine to reflect economic realities, rather than a reconsideration of the earlier assessment. The court applied the guidance in Whirlpool UK Appliances Limited [2017] EWCA Crim. 2186. The sentencing judge had already allowed for UCL’s financial position and for the fact that the fault lay in one department when selecting the large-organisation range.

5. The 20 per cent allowance for charitable status and the 25 per cent reduction for the guilty plea were each within the judge’s discretion. The fine would not reduce charitable services to needy persons, and the department’s activities had some commercial aspect. UCL was ordered to pay £2,500 prosecution costs.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): dismissed UCL’s appeal against sentence: [2018] EWCA Crim 835.
• Crown Court at Southwark: following UCL’s guilty plea, imposed a £300,000 fine and prosecution costs on 3 July 2017.