ABSTRACT
In 2000, a rail disaster occurred near Hatfield in the UK that killed several people. The cause of the disaster was poor rail track maintenance. Track maintenance had been outsourced to Balfour Beatty, a major UK engineering company. Prosecutions under health and safety legislation were brought against both Railtrack (at the time the privatized company responsible for track, stations and other facilities) and Balfour Beatty. Several senior managers from both companies were charged with manslaughter, despite the fact that only the outsourcing company had direct contractual responsibility for the track’s maintenance. The manslaughter prosecutions were unsuccessful, causing Bob Crow, the Rail Union General Secretary, to state:
Justice will not been done until Britain has a corporate manslaughter law that holds individual executives to account for negligence that kills innocent people.
