ABSTRACT
When the personnel involved in the official response to death make decisions they are influenced by social axioms, often directly deducible from the same precepts from which judges extract their tenets of public policy. It can sometimes be difficult to separate out the distinct elements which connect, progressively, as social axiom – precept – point of view – perceived fact, because ‘fact, value, role and vantage point are all intimately bound up in the process of perception’. Owing to various factors of social and historical development it is very common for deaths at work to be perceived as ‘accidents’ or, in any event, if they are wrongs, they are seen as wrongs which are suitably dealt with as infringements of regulatory legislation. Popular ideas and implicit assumptions play a part in determining how the criminal justice system operates. Quite often, decisions of police officers which stem from factual interpretations are presented as legal and lapidary.
