Health and safety crime in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom there are several crimes that arise from failure to take care of health, safety and welfare at work.

All offences under the Act are triable summarily in the Magistrates' Court. However, some offences are triable on indictment in the Crown Court by judge and jury. If the magistrates feel that the offence is so serious as to exceed their sentencing powers, they can send it to the Crown Court for trial of for sentencing. The accused has a right to opt for Crown Court trial. Some other offences are triable summarirly only. Either an individual or a corporation can be punished A corporation cannot be imprisoned, though an individual manager could be convicted if guilty of an offence.

The statutory offences and maximum penalties are:

Further, for offences triable on indictment, up to two years' imprisonment may be imposed on a guilty individual where there is (s.33(4)):

These penalties are maxima and guideline sentencing practice is published by the Sentencing Guidelines Council. The maximum fines available for many regulation offences used to be relatively low at the magistrates court, however the Health and Safety (Offences) Act 2008, and Section 85 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (which came into force on 16 January 2009 and 12 March 2015 respectively) had the effect of increasing the level of most fines available for magistrates’ courts to an unlimited fine (previously £20,000 for most health and safety offences). However, the increase will only apply in respect of offences committed after 12 March 2015.

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