ABSTRACT
Before exploring the legal system’s de facto response to deaths at work it is appropriate to consider the possible de jure responses; to examine the relevant law and its putative purpose, the regulatory framework in which the various agencies operate and how the different components are supposed, in theory, to gear together. This chapter begins by exploring the nature and purpose(s) of the criminal law. It examines the law of manslaughter and the official prosecutorial code and practice of the Crown Prosecution Service. The chapter then considers what role in the official response to death at work is supposed to be played by the HSE, the police, and by the coronial inquest. Until 1886, England and Wales was one of the few jurisdictions which allowed the police to prosecute rather than hand over this task to a state agency such as the district attorney in the USA.
