Food Update: New Sentencing Guideline for Health & Safety, Corporate Manslaughter and Food Safety & Hygiene Offences

Businesses should be left in no doubt about the stringent application of new sentencing guidelines when it comes to Health & Safety, Corporate Manslaughter and Food Safety & Hygiene offences. Setting fines 

Degree of culpability - to establish whether culpability is low, medium, high or very high the court will consider a number of factors - including what measures were put in place; the extent of which failures ran through different levels of the organisation and whether there were any warning signs indicating a risk to health and safety.

Level of harm - this requires the court to consider the risk of harm created by the offence, including a number of issues such as whether the offence exposed a number of people to the risk of harm or whether there was significant actual harm.

Company turnover - this will be the starting point for a fine within a category range; large being £50m or over, medium £10m-£50m, small £2m-£10m and micro turnover less than £2m.Degree of culpability - a number of factors will be considered including failure to put in place recognised industry standards, ignoring concerns of regulators and the length of time of breach.Level of harm - similar issues to those outlined for health and safety offences will be considered - but will also include whether consumers have been misled regarding food compliance with religious and personal beliefs.

Company turnover - companies are categorised in the same way as for health and safety offences.

Mitigating and aggravating factors no previous convictions or no relevant/recent convictions evidence of steps taken voluntarily to remedy the problem and procedures in place.poor health and safety record breach of a court order previous convictions having regards to the nature of the offence to which the conviction relates and its relevance to the current offence.Increased fines