Criminal lawHealth and safety - inspector purporting to delegate power to institute proceedings to local authority solicitor - information laid by solicitor null and voidR v Croydon Justices, Ex parte W H Smith Ltd: DC (Rose LJ and Elias J): 6 November 2000A solicitor employed by a local authority, acting at the behest of a health and safety inspector, laid information alleging that the applicant had committed health and safety offences.

The justices considered that, notwithstanding the restrictions on the institution of such proceedings imposed by s.38 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, the proceedings had been properly instituted on the basis that the inspector had delegated to the solicitor his power to lay the information, and decided that the information was valid and that the charges should be tried.

The applicant sought judicial review by way of an order to quash the justices' decision.Geoffrey Stephenson (instructed by Metcalfe Copeman & Pettefar, Wisbech) for the applicant.

The local authority and the justices did not appear and were not represented.Held, granting the application, that an inspector's power under s.38 of the 1974 Act to institute proceedings in respect of offences under the Act could not be delegated; and that, accordingly, the proceedings had not been validly instituted and the information was therefore null and void.

(WLR)