Labour Research July 2008

Health & Safety Matters

Death puts spotlight on directors’ duties

A firm fined just £2 with £1 costs last month after the death of a worker highlights why legal duties on individual directors are needed, the Families against Corporate Killers (FACK) campaign has claimed.

Christopher Knoop was killed and three colleagues severely injured by a blast at NW Aerosols in 2005. But the directors liquidated the company and did not appear in court last month.

FACK’s Hilda Palmer said that if directors had positive legal duties, then the individual directors of this company “could have been held to account in court”.